Twitter is more than ripe for disruption. One of these days someone will pull a google on them. Between the super slow 'new and improved' interface to sending you spam (the whole point was that you only got the tweets from those you follow) and 'twitter is over capacity, please try again in a few moments' (which is a permanent fixture these days) I can't wait for the next iteration of this concept, as long as it is done by people that know how to really scale a backend.
Twitters downfall will come when people realize that the service their offering isn't exclusive. It can be easily duplicated and improved. It seems similar to SMS and e-mail. The concept is something that will last forever, but eventually, someone is going to create an open standard that allows for people to submit "tweets" (or whatever the equivalent will be) from anywhere to anyone on any platform. Imagine a podcast style system. Get live updates on any device, subscribe to users from iTunes/GMAIL/etc.
It'll happen, sooner or later. (Probably sooner now).
To explain my idea better, think of internet messaging systems. People use AIM, ICQ, Pidgin, etc. You can communicate with users on other platforms using different software. Right now twitter is both the back-end and the front-end. Eventually, it'll just be the front end like GTalk or Pidgin.
If people felt there was somewhere to go from Twitter, they many of their userbase segments would switch. The trick is building up a big enough userbase in a competing product.
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Twitter is more than ripe for disruption. One of these days someone will pull a google on them. Between the super slow 'new and improved' interface to sending you spam (the whole point was that you only got the tweets from those you follow) and 'twitter is over capacity, please try again in a few moments' (which is a permanent fixture these days) I can't wait for the next iteration of this concept, as long as it is done by people that know how to really scale a backend.
Twitters downfall will come when people realize that the service their offering isn't exclusive. It can be easily duplicated and improved. It seems similar to SMS and e-mail. The concept is something that will last forever, but eventually, someone is going to create an open standard that allows for people to submit "tweets" (or whatever the equivalent will be) from anywhere to anyone on any platform. Imagine a podcast style system. Get live updates on any device, subscribe to users from iTunes/GMAIL/etc.
It'll happen, sooner or later. (Probably sooner now).
To explain my idea better, think of internet messaging systems. People use AIM, ICQ, Pidgin, etc. You can communicate with users on other platforms using different software. Right now twitter is both the back-end and the front-end. Eventually, it'll just be the front end like GTalk or Pidgin.
And yet of the non-techy people I know, they all either use Skype or MSN (or, game-playing friends, Steam Friends).
If people felt there was somewhere to go from Twitter, they many of their userbase segments would switch. The trick is building up a big enough userbase in a competing product.