According to comscore only 11 percent of Twitter's users are aged 12 to 17. The majority of users are employed, tech-curious, older adults. This goes someway to explaining why the micro-blogging service is becoming an ever more integral part of business.

140 | The Twitter Conference is taking place today in San Francisco and brings together some of the industries key Twitter players:

• Damon Cortesi, Untitled Startup
• H.B. Siegel, IMBd.com
• Brad Nelson, Starbucks
• Adam Loving, Twibes
• Shauna Causey, Comcast
• Ryan Holmes, Hootsuite
• Rich Harris, Seagate

The conference aims to demystify some of the ‘noise’ around Twitter and more specifically show businesses how they can leverage Twitter for business. I have been, and continue to be, somewhat skeptical about Twitter; the self-perpetuating prophecy smacks of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ to some degree. However, in amongst the self-congratulatory hype are some tangibly (and measurably) good business tools.

Twitter and business is all about customer base and creating conversations with your customers, not something traditional business is used to. Knowing what kinds of conversations to have, how and with whom is a big part of the conference's objective.

The panel argues that Twitter and business isn't about marketing, but when you consider the mine of demographic information it's hard not to make the correlation between happy tweet feelings and marketing. Regardless of whether we are politically correct and call it friend building rather than marketing, you still need to know what you're trying to achieve. One of the companies that helps with this is CoTweet, a service specifically for businesses to help them get the most out of Twitter.

Whether you're a believer, curious or a skeptic, it’s worth checking out some of the emerging Twitter tools and whether they are applicable to your business. You can follow the conversations today just search for the #140tc hashtag on Twitter.