The amazing growth of Twitter would defy all the laws of fast-growing phenomena if it did not have its detractors. And it is unquestionable that Twitter does, very much, have people queuing up to find fault with it. It would be dishonest to suggest, too, that all of these detractors were arguing from a position of ignorance. Many of them know what they are talking about - and many, indeed, do not. But what are the arguments against Twitter? 

It is frequently said that Twitter is boring and banal. There is a sliver of truth in this belief, especially if you read tweets from people who are not particularly eloquent or interesting. Yes, a lot of people hate their boss. 

Some people can be amusing about how they hate their boss, and others can be spectacularly boring about it. By the same token, no-one says that speaking out loud is boring and banal, and we have all had conversations with people who are spectacularly boring to us. 

Other detractors say that Twitter distracts people from talking to each other in the old fashioned way, directly face to face. And while this view has its merits, the same is true of e-mail, telephones, letter-writing and semaphore. Others argue that the 140-character limit encourages the use of "text speech". 

There is a great deal of truth in this, but one has only to look around at some of the more eloquent feeds to see that even in 140 characters, it is possible to say something interesting and spell it perfectly. In the end, some people like Twitter and some hate it - which describes hundreds of thousands of other things, too.