The Death of Twitter?
We have become conditioned to look for the next big thing and than to start to question its validity once it has been discovered. This is no surprise given the rise and fall of new media hopefuls such as MySpace and Second Life. Much of the concern comes from place of being cynical over hype for brands that create a lot of buzz but not enough revenue. Many of us still remember the Dot Com era of 2000.
It is in this context that there is often question about the future of Twitter. TechCruch recently reported that it appears that visits to Twitter.com declined by 8% month-over-month in the US in October. While some may argue that this does not take into account that many Twitter users use applications to stay connected to the service, this fact should normalize over time and still reflect a growth in website traffic as it relates to new users.
It may be that we are just caught in a transition point while legacy users are discovering and migrating to applications and that eventually we will see traffic to the website bottom out and than begin to show a growth trend again. Or it may be that new users get excited about Twitter early on and than get bored (as reports have shown), leaving only a handful a twitter users to talk amongst themselves. Only time will tell.
Whatever the future of Twitter as a brand is, it is undeniable that the concept of micro-blogging will not go away. This is only the natural evolution of the Internet as it allows users to stay connected at scale. From it’s roots of blogging and instant messaging to the impact on Facebook and Google Wave, Twitter has driven the expectation of the user’s ability to connect to a broad but define audience in as simple terms as possible.
Image Source: TechCrunch / ComScore
