It’s been gaining mainstream buzz this year, but Twitter has finally stepped into the bigtime recently with the Wired article about how Twitter broke the news about the Earthquake. To be clear, “Twitter” the company didn’t break the news, but Twitter users were all tweeting about the earthquake before any major news site had published anything.

Wired said, “Blogs and news sites buzzed the next day about how Twitter had ushered in a new era of communication.”

Most people want to talk about the Twitter business model, and sites like Mashable are all excited about Twitter breaking into the big time, but the article made mention of something in passing that really caught my eye. Towards the end of the article, Wired pointed out how companies like Dell, Jetblue and Whole Foods are using Twitter to communicate with customers. It’s this style of “opt-in” communication that people typically think about when they discuss email marketing. If you’ve ever tried to rent or buy, much less create a useful email list for marketing purposes, you’ve no doubt experienced frustration.

It brings me back to my earlier article about leveraging Twitter to build “communities” and get better feedback from customers - in real time. Products like live chat have created great tools for connecting with customers in real time - but times they are a changin - and now consumers like to wear their brand affinities right on their virtual sleeves (aka: social networks like Myspace and Facebook) and this gives brands a phenomenal opportunity to connect with consumers in a network environment.

So what’s this all mean for the entrepreneur or web business out there, debating about whether or not to use social media to connect with customers and whether it has true value. Debate no more. Social media has gone from being news to making it.