Where will Twitter go?
Recently, Twitter has seen a lot of positive press in the media. It has been climbing up the hill of success for years. It started out small and keeps on growing. However, the other side of the Twitter-slope looks very much like that of other social media. Twitter is gaining and will continue to gain more followers, and the negative press that comes with that fame. There isn’t really any need to cover Twitter’s history in length, but here is a short, short summary of its most recent developments. First, there has been a huge influx of money/financial Twitter-related news in the last week. The Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) /CNN (@cnnbrk) competition received a lot of media attention, especially when Kutcher brought charity dollars into the equation. Then CNN bought the @cnnbrk account for an undisclosed amount. Furthermore, the Twitter-related business ventures are increasing as more and more businesses use twitter to advertise. Second, twitter is now mainstream. Oprah (@oprah) is using the service for goodness sake. More and more people have been asking me lately, “What is Twitter?” Eventually, Twitter will see the numbers that both Facebook and MySpace have seen. Some might say that Twitter will never reach the mass of these other social media services because it lacks the mainstream appeal that makes these other services popular. This group says that because it is difficult to find friends on Twitter (comparatively), Twitter’s ease-of-use will hinder the services ability to add new users. Unfortunately, this is no longer true. Twitter and Twitter-based apps have made finding people easy. First, the suggested persons feature on the Twitter home-page makes it easy for new users to find people they would consider interesting (how many girls are interested in Britney Spears? How many teenage boys, for that matter, are interested in Britney Spears?) Second, there are several independent Twitter-based apps that make finding friends easier. The development of these apps, and there possible integration of these services into programs like Seesmic Desktop or Tweetdeck makes it all that much easier. Third, and this is the big one, now that Twitter is mainstream, it is as easy as exchanging a username to find friends. People will find each other the same way they did on Myspace. They will use internal search tools (Twitter’s own search), Google, and word of mouth. That last one is how I found many of the people I follow. Some may say that Facebook is popular because people want to find classmates, and Myspace is popular because of its use of multimedia or because it was just at the right place at the right time. The same is with Twitter. Simplicity has mass appeal. The difference between Twitter and these other services is that it is more piecemeal. If I just want to do updates, I can do updates. If I want to send pictures, I can send pictures. If I want to link, I can link. Twitter’s numbers finally reach the level of mass these other services have, the mainstream media will turn on it. What happens if a teenager meets someone in real life that they met using twitter, and things go wrong? What about a tweeted suicide? These are things that the mainstream media will latch onto and report for days. The real question is, will people keep twittering?
