Twitter is either going to be the biggest Internet phenomenon of this year (think YouTube in 2006 or Facebook on 2007) or I will eat my hat. Well, it will be IF the tipping point is reached. Quite what this tipping point is I'm not sure, but when enough people get absorbed into it's crazy ways then it might just be a hit. It's been around for a while (I've been aware of existence for over a year anyway), but more and more famous people seem to be using it and celebrity endorsement never hurt any product, even strange social networking sites.
Might be a hit? Well, the great thing about Twitter is that not only can you track what your friends are up to, but you can also track the celebs. One of my favorites so far is Lance Armstrong, but plenty of others including the newly elected Pres of the US have a Twitter feed.
So - how does it work? Simple. If you know the "status update" tool in Facebook, imagine that, all by itself. Just status updates, and nothing else. You are meant to type in, in no more than 140 characters (that's one sentence or two), the answer to "What are you doing now?". Then, you select friends or other people you want to follow and they get added to your page so that when you log on, at any time you can see what they are up to. Kind of bizarre, strangely addictive.
According to Hitwise, Twitter traffic has grown by 984% in the UK in the last 12 months. That is fast fast growth. The tipping point might be coming soon.
Why do it? I really don;t know the answer to that. Everyone will have their own reason. If you get something out of it, you'll come back. If that something is keeping up with mates, colleagues or heroes, you sometimes need to give to receive.
This century, enabled by the Internet, one-to-one communications and business will take off. The Internet is the ultimate middle-man. Who needs Hello magazine when Jonathan Ross will tell you what he's up to in real time?
To Tweet or not to tweet? You decide.
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