I was on Scott Bishop’s website just now and I came across his recent Twitter post. I found it to be an interesting read and clicked over to RJMetrics to get a further feel for the statistics that Scott laid out and discussed. The gist of these posts was to analyze recent data released on Twitter usage and what it may mean for the future of the online social network. Here are the pertanent results from RJM:

And their conclusions of this data

I would say that these results are a mixed bag of sorts. Twitter is obviously still growing but the regressive rates cited are concerning.

When Twitter began to catch on about a year ago I checked it out and couldn’t see the point. As a regular person it looked like a site dedicated to Facebook status updates. I refrained from getting an account but my partner set up one for our clothing company. I began to think that the only real advantage of Twitter was for brands. It allowed them to connect with users. That seemed to make enough sense.

But it left a bigger problem. Why does an average person care to use Twitter? Who wants to follow the average person? It isn’t like Facebook where you can stalk everybody you know’s life. On Twitter you kind of have to hope your important enough for somebody to want to stalk you. Sounds difficult. Whereas on Facebook all 500 of your friends are accessible to see everything about you, on Twitter maybe 25 of your friends can figure out what you’re eating, which they can also figure out from your Facebook. This was my thinking a year ago as I continued to keep a close eye on the new startup.

It is for this reason that about 6 months ago I said that Twitter would be rendered irrelevant within 2 years. Not completely irrelevant, just Myspace irrelevant. Myspace is still a big deal, you just have to be looking for something specific to get the most out of it. Otherwise you won’t like it because it has become cluttered with so much waste. The days of it being the communication hub died when Facebook stepped on it and it failed to respond.

The bottom line is Twitter has a problem. It is a great networking tool. But most people don’t want to network. They just want to communicate with people they are already friends with. Twitter does not provide that community atmosphere that attracts, and addicts the masses. It fills a niche for connecting people who don’t know each other through things they both want to know about.

About a month ago I finally figured out that Twitter may help me out and I signed up. I still think it will be reduced to Myspace status in 2 years, but I still use Myspace for my brands. Twitter will continue to have a use. But soon the general public will cease signing up for it in droves because most people who sign up sign up because they think its trendy. Shortly thereafter they conclude they can’t use it and they abandon their accounts. What will Twitter do when it isn’t trendy anymore?

Based on the recent progression of social networks, Myspace>Facebook >Twitter(I realize there were sites before Myspace, but I’m only 21), it is safe to conclude the next big social network is right around the corner at which point the only thing holding Twitter or any of the other big 3 up will be its core competencies. Facebook remained steady through Twitter which was predictable. But how will Twitter look after the next wave?

Things can always change. Twitter could reconstruct and evolve as other sites emerge, which Myspace never managed to do. But I predict it will be reduced to a similar state.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Technology.