You can’t do anything online these days without hearing about Twitter. I’ve written a few posts about it in the past (found here) and I have to admit that I am impressed with how it has been “blowing up” the past couple of months. I have had discussions with friends and co-workers about the staying power of Twitter and wanted to share my thoughts with everyone else.
Twitter is a force; an unstoppable force I feel right now. The only thing standing in its way is itself. With its huge growth, it has hard times with big events that come with a lot of tweets at the same time. For example, at the Macworld conference, Twitter experienced a few “Fail Whales” for a couple of hours. The same with CES that same week. Other times, it goes down without much of a reason. But other than that, I really don’t see anything or anyone getting in their way.
I wrote a post comparing Twitter, Plurk and Pownce a few months back and since then Pownce has bowed out of the battle. Plurk is still just a blip on the radar. I have an account but don’t really ever use it. It seemed like a good idea but I never could catch on. Too many of my friends were on Twitter already and like most people I thought, “Do I need this twice?”
Twitter is not going away any time soon. I have heard others say that they don’t expect to be on it in 2-3 years time but when I hear that, I can’t help but to think “what will you be on?” To me, Twitter just has that “it” quality and will soon be mainstream. I mean, even my mom has an account 
I can’t think of anything taking its spot.
It’s one of those things I see people realizing how they lived without before it existed. Kind of like me with my DVR, I don’t know how I ever was without it. I feel the same about Twitter. I have met a ton of people and learned a lot of interesting things in the time I have used it. I think that Twitter has the power to be around for a while and only grow stronger, probably with the assistance of a bigger company buying them out. I just hope that They stay true to their initial idea and only imporove upon their infrastructure and stop all of the “Fail Whales”. Twitter can be a big force like a Google if it plays its cards right. I guess only time will see.
Twitter is the real-time equivalent of wikipedia. It has changed the way we meet and interact, but only if used properly.
Media outlets claim that their new competition is Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. They are wrong. Every single one of us is now competition. We are our own media outlets.
That is exactly right. When the US Airways plane crashed, all the news sites were referring to Twitter as if it was a news source and I couldn’t stop laughing. I also like your Wikipedia reference. I have used Twitter instead of Google on numerous occasions to just find out real answers. Amazing the help that other users give, you included.
Well written post. However, what I don't like about this “Twitter” phenomenon, is that I feel that it just down plays the way people interact with others because you are limited to that about of characters you can write. Thus, making people dumber and lazy with their brains.
I worry also that it will only escalate the already horrible “self entitalement” problem, because the reasoning behind Twitter is “What are YOU doing RIGHT NOW” thing.
Now Justin, I'm not saying you are getting dumber or anything, but I'm always a little skeptical with advancing technology and what it can do on a person's soul. Maybe I'm just crazy.