The growth of the social media tool Twitter has been one of the leading tech and media stories of the last year.  But skeptics abound as the business model for Twtter seems elusive, secret, or nonexistent.  As Twitter's founders play their cards close to the vest, some businesses have found a great deal of utility in the tool.  Small Business Trends writers have frequently highlighted the potential value of Twitter to small business owners--most recently giving it a key mention in their list of  16 Things You Can Do Yourself to Create Word-of-Mouth for Your Business.  Zane Safrit writes:

Join the millions of people who’ve looked like fools at least once in their life. It’s a party.    And join them as they connect with millions of customers, prospects, partners, vendors, ideas, innovators solutions.

And the New York Times is getting in the act.  In today's paper, Claire Cain Miller profiles some small business owners who drank the Twitter Kool-Aid and are seeing big results after relatively little effort: 

“We think of these social media tools as being in the realm of the sophisticated, multiplatform marketers like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, but a lot of these supersmall businesses are gravitating toward them because they are accessible, free and very simple,” said Greg Sterling, an analyst who studies the Internet’s influence on shopping and local businesses.