Twitter in Trouble?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
It seems that all is not well in the world of Twitter. That is, according to a recent cover story in Fortune that warns Twitter's usage appears to be flat lining.
The story says Twitter has garnered 200 million citizens from all over the world, but one hundred million of them are absent altogether, and Twitter.com has about 20 million fewer visitors per month than Myspace.
Twitter also seems to lack a visionary product leader while suffering from outages and not turning a profit. Finally, CNN reported on Wednesday that UberMedia is planning to build a rival micro-blogging network that could shun the the famous 140-character limit.
Now the question is does Twitter really have a problem on their hands? Should "tweeps" begin looking to another city with fewer rules?
Well, looking at the numbers Quantcast says there's been a 50% jump in usage in the past five months, Google Analytics says international traffic has risen 83% in the past year, and because so many people are tweeting on their mobile device or third party app, the Twitter.com numbers are incomplete.
Even without the numbers Twitter is the only service that actually immerses you in a global conversation, especially when there's a natural disaster, major sporting event, or revolution going on.
What about it's 140-character limit? This is, and will be, Twitter's greatest asset despite the little minority of people that protest against it. It's the stop-light system that keeps the traffic flowing smoothly and allows everyone to get a word in.
If something is worth saying, it's worth saying as short and brief as possible. Just ask Poets and screenwriters.
With that said, I believe the answer to "Is Twitter in trouble?" is simply, no. Twitter has accomplished something special and is far away from being outdone or repeated in any way.
Wouldn't you agree?
Photo Credit: money.cnn.com via Creative Commons
4 comments:
This is rather shocking for me to read. The part about MySpace having more visitors is even more shocking. To me, MySpace is dead and Twitter is the "cool thing." I still think Twitter has time to beat out MySpace. However, I do have question as to whether this article is true or not. I know Fortune is a very reliable source, but there is still question inside of me.
I am definitely not surprised with the statement about how Twitter has garnered 200 million citizens from all over the world, but one hundred million of them are absent altogether. I had a Twitter account before I took BNR, but never used it until we had to for class.
This is not surprising to me at all. Some individuals just get twitter so they can tell their peers that they have a twitter account. This does not mean that they use their twitter on a day to day basis. We also discussed this topic in one of my other classes. I feel like twitter may have the most people but facebook is the most popular with active users.
This post shocked me because I thought Twitter was becoming more and more popular. I can't believe MySpace is still doing well. I haven't used my MySpace account in well over a year. I think if we give Twitter a little more time it will catch up in the different social networks. I know a lot of people that are just being introduced to Twitter and are starting to use it more frequently.
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