Is Twitter Dying? - An Update Tue 26 Jan 10

Recent Media Reports Highlight Decline of Twitter

A couple of media reports regarding Twitter caught my attention due in large part since they raise some of the same issues I have raised in earlier posts.  Mainstream media CNN has an article "Has Twitter Peaked?" while the IT trade magazine Computerworld has an article "Twitter now has 75M users; most asleep at the mouse".  Both discuss the growth of Twitter but also the large number of people that try it and drop it.

I raised the same issues in June, 2009 with "Twitter's Dilemma" and again in December with "The Death of Social Media" (which discussed social media in general including Twitter).  It's interesting to see I'm not alone in wondering if Twitter is on the decline and perhaps the founders have squandered an opportunity to monetize their creation.

The CNN article reads in part: "Maybe Twitter was a victim of its own success," said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore, another company that tracks traffic on Internet sites. "It grew so quickly that it isn't meeting its own expectations."  The sub-headline for my June post was "Has the popular microblogging service become a victim of its own success?" and went on to say "This growth has, however, apparently caused scalability issues and may also cover up some disturbing trends that could adversely impact its long-term user base and possibilities for monetization."  All rather similar.

Clearly Twitter is not dead (at least not yet) but I believe it's long-term viability is in question. Since the founders have for the time being decided against advertising as a way of monetizing Twitter I stand by my December prediction that they will eventually go to a premium service model.  The big unknown is will they be too late?

If this topic was of interest, you might also like these:

• The Death of Social Media
• Twitter's Dilemma
• Twitter's Corporate Message
• Or the posts in the "Web / Web 2.0 / Internet" category