A story in Monday's paper tells of a group of Naperville Twitterers who got together to meet in person after only speaking online up to that point.
Twitter is being sold as the next big thing, but a lot of people (including your moderator) are still skeptical. Do you Twitter? If so, what are the reasons to use it? How is it better or different than other social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace? Do you think it will last or is it just a fad?
Nope.
Twitter's problem is profitability. So far they've got hundreds of millions of dollars of investor capital sunk in to a service that has yet to make a dollar. They seem to be following the .com business model of the late 90's that consisted of:
1. Get tons of investor money.
2. Build a huge service with millions of users and an office building with fancy furniture and climbing walls.
3. ????????????????
4. Make lots and lots of money!
...And I don't need to remind anyone how that ended. (Hint: Very few people ever figured out step 3.)
That said, I enjoy Twitter. Most of my friends, family, and co-workers use it, and it has actually replaced a lot of the text messaging we used to do. It's really easy to organize things on Twitter, and the 140 character limit keeps everything bite sized so you never have to trudge through epic blog diatribes, stupid surveys, or flash-intensive animated profile pages.
Largely due to Twitter's likely financial failure, I'm reluctant to get too dependent on the service even though it has become "normal" to put your Twitter on your business card these days. Regardless, Tweetie is by far the app I use the most on my iPhone. It's also been really fun watching the media try to get on the Twitter bandwagon, since so few news agencies seem to really "get" Twitter.
While the Twitter service may be an unsustainable fad, I think microblogging is here to stay. Something to keep an eye out for is what Google manages to accomplish with Google Wave. They bring Google's profitability (so the service won't just disappear one day like a fart in the wind) and instead of relying on all kinds of exterior sites like TwitPic to provide media/file hosting, Google Wave will do it all from one location.
I guess we'll see what happens.
Keyboard,
You may be focused a bit too much on twitter specifically, and the financial viability of one org, when what we're really talking about is mass broadcasting of text messages, an idea that probably can't be protected. Right now, Twitter is all people think of, but that was once myspace, facebook, and etc. all of which have spawned interesting and similar competitors. Of course, right now, twitter has the lion's share of users and buzz.
You mentioned Google Wave though, and that's where it may all get monetized, as google seems to do fairly well. Given how frequently people use their other services, rolling this into the google messaging empire is interesting, and may well be a very powerful combination.
For my part, and to stay on topic, I don't use twitter, since my professional life lies in areas that aren't helped by this, really, and I'm just barely old enough to prefer one-one communication vs mass updates. It is, however, interesting and I do follow a couple of them.
Twitter is mainly used by people who believe that others take an interest in what their life is about.
Here is a hint: They don't.
It's a fad that will die as gloriously as it's being hyped; like all the rest of the cheap tech features that someone tried to productize.
The fundamental core is a very old methodology of publish/subscribe that's been around since at least the 80's and quite possibly before that.
Take it from a geek who's been there, done that.
In my opinion, Twitter really serves no purpose other than to further inflate the egos of those who post their every move thinking someone else is waiting with baited breath to find out what is going on in the life/lives of other.
To Twitter commenters, I say, "No one cares. Get over yourself."
To Twitter readers, I say, "Get a life. Life is too short to sit and ponder whether or not someone else is bored/tired/angry/happy or just has a colossal ego. Do something to make your OWN life memorable."
I agree that people who post inane things and follow the inane banter of others need to get a life, but it's infinitely easier to organize doing something with friends when I can just invite and arrange things in the open via Twitter than making a dozen phone calls and/or sending a dozen text messages.
Twitter also has become an amazing marketing avenue, and I've personally seen the fruits of several extremely successful viral marketing campaigns thanks to Twitter. The same can be said for networking at work, I've made some extremely valuable contacts via Twitter.
At the end of the day it's just a tool, and it's all in how you use it. Twitter can be a place to post about how the Diet Coke you're drinking isn't as crisp as you'd expect it to be, or it can be a great way to save time and make money. Unfortunately, it's easier to point out how stupid the people are who post about their cat being asleep than realizing the potential found in social networking.