Well, Since the beginning of Twitter, I have been a skeptic about the service (See an old post of mine: Some things our fathers will never understand. I am not one of the “Old” not to understand it, I am also not one of the “Young” to leave it because it is boring. I am involved heavily in Internet Marketing and feel I have to be up on all marketing trends.

So after all the hype and hoopla, and after my amazement of the way it took off, I still feel it will not last at this stage too much longer. I feel that the SRB’s have depleted their rocket fuel. And the “Rick Sanchez Effect” is gone.

My feeling is that any service that stays and survives on the web has to do so without a need major for a major behavior change. If it does require a major behavior change then it has to be something like the cell phone, web, the fax or the telephone. When it is something that you see you have to use or you will go the way of the Amish.

When the answering machines came out I was a young guy, I remember people hated to leave messages, they would just call back. When IVR or voice mail systems came out (Press ‘1’ for sales, ‘2’ for Sally, ‘0’ for the operator, etc.) people would hate it, and although some people still do hate it, they know that if you want Harry to call you back or John to know why you will not answer him in the next 10 minutes you will have to navigate the IVR jungle and leave him a message.

Well, think about it, what has Twitter got to offer that you, the normal person, must have to continue life? NOTHING!! I am on the web 15 hours a day, and I find I am just doing it so in case it becomes something that people cannot do without, I will not be left out in the cold.

I think Twitter does have it’s place though, it is not useless, it is actually quite useful when it comes to certain niches. My point is that it is not going to stay a rocketship going up forever, it’s not a Google, or a Facebook (Although I have my opinion about Facebook also 🙂

The best use for Twitter is:
– If you are in Iran, and the mullahs are blocking a lot of sites, then you should use Twitter to get the word out, quick!!! (One of the most used services to get info out of that trouble spot)
– When you have people that need updates from you all the time and these updates are not ones that warrant a full blog entry.
– If you are a software company and want to give people the heads up about what’s happening on a day-to-day basis, then here you go.
– If you are a news agency like CNN or ?? then you can get the word out and in quickly.
– You are broadcasting a game, or a race etc. and only local people can hear your audio broadcast, then you can use Twitter to broadcast short mesages to anyone in the world immediately.
– If you are Apple, then you can pretty much use anything
– If you have friends that are following your trek across America, and you want to give them updates, it’s another use.
– If you are a writer and want to give people an update as to what you are noticing and want to tell more than one person…
– If you are on a vacation and you want to give quick updates to friends, or links to certain locations, well Twitter is the way.
– If you are a teacher and want to show parents (or students for that matter) what you are discussing in class.
– If you are the preacher in a church and want to remind people about certain things during the day, then here you go, your “Micro-Pulpit”, have at it.
– Of course there are much more…

So basically if the user is involved in a rapidly changing subject or field, then that is the niche that Twitter will eventually take care of. So why is it still growing? Think about it. IT’S FREE, and people don’t want to be left out.

As a good friend put it clearly, “The moment Twitter decides to charge for the service, that’s when we’ll see how useful it really is to people…” So there you go folks, that’s where we’ll see the “Twitter Fizzle”.

Over & Out.
Diran Afarian

My attempt at a short cartoon.