I loves me some Speeder and Earl's.  I particularly like their Ethiopian Harrar beans... mmm...  They have an awesome staff and free wifi and they're in the heart of my favorite neighborhood in America -- Burlington's south end.  Unfortunately, they are a poster child for how not to Twitter.  Here is a sampling of their tweets from the last few weeks...

"Shop our selection of Fair Trade coffees, open this post and click the link..."

"Join us every morning for a cup of the best coffee Burlington has to offer. All of our coffees are roasted right here on Pine Street in BTV"

"Want to hang an art show at Speeders? We happily provide local artists our wallspace to show/sell their art (no fees, of course). Call us!"

So that's all good information to have -- they offer fair trade coffees that are roasted locally and their shop features the work of local artists.   But Twitter is not really ideal for this sort of traditional marketing language.  Mind you, Twitter has the potential to be an excellent marketing tool, but not used in this way.  I think S&E's should have their roaster and maybe their baristas twitter about the roasting process and what the day is like and mocha-making techniques.  They could send tweets quoting funny things Peter Freyne says to them, or they could comment on the crazy-busy traffic on Pine Street.  They could certainly twitter relevant news items too -- like art openings happening or specials that they have that day, etc.

I'm no Twitter expert -- having only been actively using it for a few weeks myself, but if blogging is best when the language is informal and personal, that's doubly true for Twitter. 

I should add that they've only been on Twitter for a little over a week and they only have one follower so they could just be testing it out and I can't fault them for dipping their toes a bit before jumping in head first.  But as much as I want to click the "follow" button, I won't until they're doing more with the tweets than standard ad-speak.