Is Twitter just a passing fancy?? David Carr doesn't think so.

In a provocative column titled "Why Twitter Will Endure" in today's New York Times, Carr writes that while "it would be hard to come up with a noun more trite than Twitter," the burst of tidbits of information are invaluable in determining what's going on of importance in our world.

"Instead of spending a half hour surfing (the Web) in search of illumination, I get a sense of the day's news and how people are reacting to it in the time that it takes to wait for coffee at Starbucks," he writes.

It all depends on who you follow in 140-character bites. So ditch the person who writes "I just had a donut" and hone in on those who offer the information you need to know. "By carefully curating the people you follow, Twitter becomes an always-on data stream from really bright people in their respective fields, whose tweets are often full of links to incredibly vital, timely information," Carr writes.

It's the best explanation I've read on why Twitter is important. We'll see if Carr is correct as the decade unfolds.