As much as we love Twitter, Web 2.0 Expo seems stuck at what Twitter has wrought, and can't seem to focus further than the next Twitter app. WSJ Digits reports that the presentation on Twitter business models was the most popular, and the best comment they could muster is "Twitter is the canary in the coal mine". We intuitively know this about Twitter's knack for monitoring trends and real time perceptions. It's concept rehash.
Rafe Needleman reports that half his walk-up pitches were Twitter-related. Conceptually Twitter is so simple, the new apps built around Twitter also seem like they were created on a cocktail napkin. What would really rock the Twitter and social media boat would be the launch of counterintuitive applications that used Twitter as, say, an advertising vehicle (gasp), especially when everybody is now cringing about how Twitter is being overrun by MLM and spamming mega-following bots.
My take on the future of Twitter: The Twitter user base will begin to compartmentalize based on the various ways Twitter is used. Twitter apps for advertising will flourish because it is a powerful branding medium. Twitter spammers are easy to identify and may eventually segregate into their own societies like ghettoes. Other societies based on industry and geography will become well defined. Twitterers who want to use Twitter with small groups for more intimate communication will continue to do so.
In other words, Twitter will embrace laissez faire. As Twitter grows and user follower bases expand from 100's to 1,000's to 10,000's organically (or not, depending upon the user's preference), everybody will begin to mind their own business. Twitter societies will start mirroring the virtual worlds of Second Life, where like-minded participants find each other for whatever... and others don't seem to notice the bizarre stuff unless they go slumming and friending themselves into these worlds.
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