A curse on work or an online aid to collaboration?

I don't know much about Zappos.com except that it is an online shoe retailer and that every member of the Zappos staff has a presence on Twitter.com, a social networking site. Why, you may ask? Social networking sites burn time among company employees. They must be banned.

If you have time to switch channels for a minute to the Donkin Life blog you can see the raw product of some discussion after my first attempts at twittering (although some may argue I've been practicing all my life). Jon Ingham and David Creelman make some interesting points. Note Jon's point that the Zappo twitterers (or tweaters) also include customers. Imagine the power of constant customer-employee dialogue. Just like it used to be before companies discovered the economies of online business.