iThnk.com

Is Twitter Going To Die?

Recently a contact of mine told me that she’d been to a conference where an exec from Mindshare claimed that Twitter would be face down in the gutter within two years.

She asked me what I thought and to be quite honest I fumbled a weak and rather unconvincing response.

I’m not sure why I was so taken aback. When others have declared similar things before I, like all people who live in the socialsphere realise that almost everything has it’s day in the sun before shrinking slowly into the shadows.  But truthfully the thought of Twitter dying so soon after its explosion into the mainstream hadn’t actually crossed my mind.

In my weak and unconvincing response I tried promote the merits of twitter that make the likelihood of it dying within two years unlikely. I don’t think my answer fully satisfied her, and I left the meeting kicking myself that I hadn’t answered her query with more conviction.

This is what I should have said:

“Twitter very well may die one day, it’s definitely undergoing a major shift in the way people use it. But because of the connections made through twitter and the shear mass of information being shared; there’s still an enormous amount of value to be discovered”.

Twitter’s Strengths

Shear Mass

With hundreds of millions of users sharing 140 characters there’s a whole load of information being shared. With Google now on the case, real time search is closer than ever. This means you’ll be able to search for what people are saying all over the web about breaking news topics, your favorite celebrity, hometown sports team, and anything else; which means you’ll use Twitter to stay on top of the day’s events.

Valued Connections

Regardless of whether you’re broadcasting your message, sharing links, or engaging in conversation with other tweeps; if people are following you, you’re creating value. The value of these connections builds up through your interaction which makes Twitter harder and harder to leave.

Amazing Links

I’ve spent a large part of 2009 interrogating people about their blog reading habits. Whenever my interviewees have mentioned twitter they’ve all mentioned the great links that they’ve found and used to populate their RSS reader.

User-based improvements

Twitter’s involvement in ‘Get Satisfaction’ and it’s constant focus on user based improvements means that as our needs for instant communication change so will Twitter.

3rd Party Apps

You probably know that there are loads of third party Twitter applications, what this does is keep Twitter “open”. Open to change beyond their control. So even if @Ev and @Biz don’t see how our needs are changing other people will be able to adapt Twitter so that @Ev and @Biz don’t have to.

Why It won’t Matter if Twitter Does Die

If Twitter dies it means that something(s) far greater has taken it’s place. That real time search is being preformed better without our 140 character updates, we’re making more valuable connections elsewhere, and/or we’ve found a better way to discover links to help fill our RSS readers. It also means that all the user-based improvements and 3rd party apps weren’t able to keep up with new innovations in communication technologies.

If/when something new does all this I doubt too many of us will lament Twitter’s passing. We’ll all be too busy playing with the new geek toy.