The Peak of the Tweet?

The thing with Twitter, along with other massively popular trend sites, is that it will continue to grow until it: A) is no longer the "new site on the block" B) it reached it's capacity audience (people who are interested in this type of technology) and C) it is bumped out of it's spot by another website using similar, upgraded technology.

According to an article on CNN.com, Twitter has flat-lined in new subscribers over the last couple of months (approximately from July to December '09). While this may seem to be the beginning of the end for the site that popularized the ever-so-popular "Tweet", it is not necessarily so. Twitter.com is the type of website that attracts a certain type of internet user; young, technologically savvy people interested in the endless boundaries of communication. While the numbers show that Twitter hasn't gained an eye-catching amount of new subscribers, people already subscribed have upped their average amounts of tweets as well as "following" others and gaining more "followers". This strikes me as the most important statistic of the article.

Here's my theory: Twitter appeals to the myspace and facebook crowd (and mostly the youth). It is no longer a "newly discovered" website. The reason Twitter had originally garnered so much attention is because of the way it hit the scene; the millions of people already familiar with social networking sites jumped on the new opportunity to join this trendy new site. At this current point in time, most of the people that want to be involved with Twitter are, in fact, tweeters. That doesn't mean Twitter won't continue to thrive. There are plenty of websites that are not as popular as they were in their launching months (see: myspace, facebook, etc.) but continue to thrive because people continue to use them with frequency.

Basically, as long as celebrities, athletes, politicians and even universities/colleges continue to use this application, Twitter will stay afloat. Sure, it might have "peaked" in the sense that they aren't continuing their growth with users (there are only so many people in the world, anyway!) but I don't believe its cultural influence has. Like it or not, Twitter will be around for a while. At about 23 million users strong, it may not be growing at the astronomically numbers it once was, but those 23 mil. will continue to show loyalty and use the site.