Glad you brought that up....what is valuable in twitter? The tangential ramblings of a handpicked group? I would argue that only a small subset of even the very best lists actually equates to value for most users.
I've used Twitter to poll peers, learn new things, coordinate meetups, find out breaking news, discover useful resources, and more. All of those are valuable to me.
In the end, it's what's valuable to you. If you can't (or don't want to) find a group of people to follow that you find interesting, helpful, or whatever, that's fine. Just because you (or sharpn, or my wife) don't find the service valuable doesn't mean that there's no value in it for anyone, though.
Good point - I can't find anything twitter does better for me than my current behaviour, but if others do then that's great; I might find a use for it in future.
Sure, influencers and celebrities benefit from the broadcast without a doubt but is it possible that the back and forth conversation is limited (post, possibly a reply, and that is usually the end of it) to make the rest of the user base just feel like they have been heard. Of course there are consumers and contributors in the mix but I would like to think that more value could exist via real conversations.
In the end, it's what's valuable to you. If you can't (or don't want to) find a group of people to follow that you find interesting, helpful, or whatever, that's fine. Just because you (or sharpn, or my wife) don't find the service valuable doesn't mean that there's no value in it for anyone, though.