I’m a big fan of Twitter. Heck, I even write a blog about Twitter.
But I have to concede the hype about Twitter seems to be getting out of control. Everywhere you turn, there’s a story about Twitter.
Earlier this week, the Toronto Star unveiled a contest about the meaning of life based on 140-characters or less. The Globe & Mail had a story about how you could stalk ex-lovers using Twitter. And Biz Stone appeared on the Colbert Report.
Now, there’s no denying Twitter is experiencing astounding growth as it goes from tool of the geeks to something celebrities are even embracing. And you know how the digerati enjoys supporting and reveling in the hype of the new kid in town.
But have we collectively become obsessed with Twitter – not only users who feel the need to share minute details of their lives but the media, which has latched onto Twitter with so much enthusiasm recently?
Before anyone accuses me of jumping off the bandwagon, I’m still excited about Twitter as a valuable and useful communications tools with a broad range of uses – both personal and professional. As much blogging was a huge step forward in how we communicate and share ideas, Twitter has jump-started user-generated content in a new and exciting direction.
That said, even I’m feeling some Twitter Fatigue (TF). However, I do not buy into David Randall’s contention in The Independent that Twitter has peaked and on its way to the digital graveyard to lie beside long-forgotten entities such as Hotbot.com and Boo.com.
Twitter seems to have cemented itself as the microblogging service – much like the Blackberry is the tool for mobile e-mail. Twitter is just scratching the surface as far as users are concerned even if we are all getting a tad too excited about it.
Technorati Tags: social media, twitter
5 Comments
If you think things are getting out of control now, fasten your seat belt because the ride is only just beginning. The volume you hear comes from ONLY 8 million or so who currently use the service. What's going to happen when 20, or 30 or 50 million people join? All of them are going to be tweeting (and blogging) about what Twitter is and how to use it.
SORRY for the multiple comments above. Something weird was going on when I tried submitting. My bad.
Btw, if you want to read more about “Twitter Fatigue, check out my Twitip post at http://twurl.nl/bzj4dm
Maybe they will have need to Google's infrastructure, ha ha ha
Truth there, Mike. Twitter is not at it's peek yet. And the form of social networking Twitter has now will transform itself. From several reasons. First it's the structure of users: it is getting wider in different interests, expectations and lifestyles people have. Second: it might be that when Google will purchase Twitter, things will get also marketing driven. So the growth will not end so soon.
You may be interested to read an analytical blog post I made yesterday: <a href=”http://gaggle.info/post/166/twitter-trends-are-me…” target=”_blank”>http://gaggle.info/post/166/twitter-trends-are-me…
I've created what I consider to be a far superior site (based on the new WP P2 microblogging theme) w/ 8 "Dimensions" @ http://8-D.us/www — just like twitter, all users post messages, but there are auto-update functions and many other features that make this microblogging community (it's actually a SHARED COMMUNITY with 8 topics / areas of focus, rather than millions of individual microblogs separated from one another).
nmw