I’ve seen this quote by Dave Winer a few times today (in my RSS reader):
Why does Twitter work better for news than Google Reader? SImple, Twitter gives you what’s new now. You don’t have to hunt around to find the newest stuff. And it doesn’t waste your time by telling you how many unread items you have. Who cares.
Scripting News: How to reboot RSS
Me, I want to see almost no links on Twitter. For me, Twitter is for keeping up with people I want to keep up with, and by design it’s an on-the-go medium. If I’m checking my timeline waiting for a Metro train, I’m probably not ready to read a long article that might come in as a link, and I’ll probably forget to look at it later (though Instapaper helps with that). When I open up my RSS reader I know I’m going to find some things that I want to sit down and read. Blogs, Google Reader, Buzz, etc. are for sharing stuff. Twitter is for sharing thoughts.