If you're anything like us, you'll be a little sceptical when it comes to the latest fads and fashions. While we're certainly not a conservative bunch of guys here at RCL, there's something about the giddiness and bandwagon-jumping around certain internet phenomena that brings out the confused old lady in all of us.

Well...we're big enough to admit when we're wrong. If you're not a convert yet, then allow us a little preaching time. Now, there is no question, 80% of what goes on is mindless LOLs and LMAOs (if anyone can enlighten us please oblige) but here's the big revelation...Twitter genuinely might be a useful business tool, one day.

We've been twittering on and off for a while now. Like most other users we were just sharing the innate poetry of what we had for tea with anyone who cared to listen. Sure, we'd heard the stories of large retailers and FMCG manufacturers offering up vouchers and promos over Twitter, but that's B2C. How Twitter had a tangible value in the B2B (i.e. real) world we hadn't quite grasped.

So it was only when we stumbled across the Beta version of the "Tweetdeck" application a few months ago that the possibilities of Twitter really hit us. Tweetdeck allows you to monitor all the activity in the Twitter Universe (the tweetverse?) and keep an eye on certain key terms. Simply set up a search for the words that interest you, sit back and wait...

and wait...

and wait. Patiently.

So you've laid your trap, you've baited it with a nice juicy keyword and nothing happens.

In the name of science, a little experiment took place in RCL Towers. We thought of a good, forward looking hi-tech term, set up a search and hid in the proverbial Twitter bushes. For four weeks we've waited for someone, somewhere to say something meaningful about 40GbE.

We think that Twitter needs a critical mass in certain industries in order to be a really effective tool for marketing, PR, business intelligence and so on. No doubt that is starting to happen in ways that could be genuinely useful.

Sooner or later someone is going to mention 40GbE or the Diameter protocol and that's when you pounce...