It is a reasonable question. One that comes up more as the platform continues to gain popularity. Below is a general answer, and I thought it would be nice to get other people’s opinions. If you have feedback, I am all for hearing it.
I will state this upfront, “could twitter go away?”, say, like Friendster or Netscape have. Absolutely.
It took years for Search as we know it today, to get figured out, and companies like Lycos and AltaVista were very important to the eventual success of Google.
The question becomes, “Could what Twitter stands for go away?” Answer: No.
Twitter has created a fundamental shift in how we communicate online that is now becoming a standard for some of the fastest growing web platforms.
Macro Trend: The web is shifting from a vast encyclopedia of information to a social environment that reflects our real identities, and the relationships and information we care about.
Core Principles of Twitter
Presence and Network Effects: The explosion of mobilizing technology(ie. phones, smaller PC’s) allows people to stay connected at all times. The “I dont care what you are doing all the time” argument breaks down similar to the “I don’t want a cell phone because that means you can reach me anytime”. Studies show that if you give us tools and others to talk with, we will in fact talk more. When we talk more, the platform works better. Network Effects.
Follow/Broadcast: The great UGC revolution online has gone something like this: ICQ –> Forums –> Blogs–> Social Nets.
Twitter is a simpler ‘Known Broadcast’ mechanism than any of the above with a better follow strategy. That is why Facebook is now doing it and also WordPress, the largest Blogging software company is as well with something called P2(video).
Open Architecture/Loosely Connected CMS: ‘Open’ has allowed for the proliferation of 3rd party applications. This is important for all platforms going forward to offer API’s for 3rd party developers to create applications off their “loosely connected CMS”. Who else is doing this well? Google with AdSense and Open Social, Facebook Connect and App Platform, Apple(iPhone), Amazon Marketplace, Best Buy, etc.
Search/Discover: Real Time search is a breakthrough. But also finding others that are like you is key. We travel in tribes. The output of conversations is Data. Continuous Data is a river and with a net you can Discover what is in that river.
Who are the companies to watch for?
Google crushed the web as an encyclopedia. Who will own the social environment? I’m not sure yet, but it’s pretty awesome we get to live through this time and watch it unfold.
Is Twitter right for Business? What is good for Business is irrelevant; what is good for the Web is relevant for Business. It is important to think about it in that order.
The Web is The Best Platform ever built by Humans to enable Creative Destruction. Twitter’s core principles are helpful to keep in mind as the web continues to shift and disrupt the forces that get in the way.
I would agree that, while the fate of Twitter, the company, is hard to predict, Twitter, the basic idea, occupies an important part in the eternal chain of evolving communication.
We all want to communicate more effectively, more directly, more efficiently. Any tools that genuinely help us do that are going to catch on. Eventually, there will probably be a way for us to communicate with the rest of the world telepathically, and that will become popular too, not because it “should,” but simply because we are moving inevitably toward it.
It's not so much that we care what each other are doing all the time. It's that each of us is ultimately frustrated that we can't completely understand other people, or be completely understood by them. We are constantly looking for ways to change this. Letting others know what you had for lunch today, in a non-intrusive and efficient way, is a relief in that regard, as the lunch itself is just a symbol of what the future may bring.
The following quote strikes me as being extremely relevant to this discussion:
The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.
– Jaron Lanier found via Presentation on http://www.betaworks.com
Very nice quote @1digitalworld. I really liked seeing that as part of the BW preso
But the truth is that most people are idiots, and the Internet itself is more interesting than they are.
The following quote strikes me as being extremely relevant to this comment:
The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe that the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.
– Jaron Lanier found via Presentation on http://www.betaworks.com
I enjoyed your post. I co-authored a paper on this subject for The Wharton School, which is available here:
Is Twitter A Fad?
http://www.jon-feldman.com/post/117192440/is-tw…
Twitter has created a fundamental shift in how we communicate online that is now becoming a standard for some of the fastest growing web platforms.
- if this is your thesis, you did not prove it.
You see a large segment of the connected populace doesn't care about twitter, myspace or facebook, which the talking heads are obsessed with. myspace is what, geocities 2.0? Facebook is really that different from classmates.com 2.0? and twitter, is it not really just RSS on steroids?
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are all 'fads' in the sense that the businesses and business models they use are all undefined and will likely fade – what may remain are the underlying ideas for the next set of genuises to reinvent and try to make work.
Until such time comes as online ad revenue helps keep these free-client services profitable enough to sustain themselves over a 5-year business cycle without significant cash injections from investors, these types of plays, which we haven't seen often since the 2000 bubble, are going nowhere, fast.
Hello from High School! Its funny that through Facebook I saw your profile, clicked on your website and then read this blog post that actually related exactly to a huge new shift that we’ve implemented in our business.(Which relates exactly to your topic – social interaction/people)
Twitter feeds actually now show up right on the front page of our new website in order to massively boost SEO’s and get the right people in front of our site. Will twitter always be on our website? Maybe not. But the social interaction and the powerful tool that twitter currently is gives businesses a major head start if they utilize it.
BTW – Maiden name Anna Cusworth….
Hello Back Anna! Glad to hear you are using Twitter, very cool. What is your website? Need to check it out.