The jury was out for me for a long time too but now it is official - Twitter (for better or worse) is a Modern Linguistics Juggernaut (great band name) and I love watching it do what it does. This article does a great job of summing up why AND provides some great insight into the ecosystem and culture through some handy apps. 

Think for just a moment about one line the article points out - Twitter can both create and spread into global use a brand new word in seconds. Globally. In seconds. One doesn't need to have an affinity for Linguistics to understand the weight of this one small fact of many. 

As someone who loves language AND Twitter there was some suspense for me about the pressure to feel Twitter is ruining or butchering language. Do you feel the same pressure?
8 Fun Twitters Tools for Language Lovers 
MASHABLE | THE SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDE | JANUARY 20, 2011
http://mashable.com/2011/01/20/twitter-tools-language-words/

Despite the undoubted popularity of third-party photo and video sharing services, it could be argued that Twitter is all ...