The news today that Twitter didn’t grow in the past quarter had me scratching my head.
Twitter did not add any new monthly active users in the past three months, but said 12 percent more users are accessing the site on a daily basis than in the same quarter last year.
Source: Twitter stalls, fails to add new users this quarter – The Verge
Twitter is central to how elected officials, business leaders, celebrities, and corporations release micro-press releases and statements. Folks hang on every tweet. It’s been near impossible to find a polemic news article that doesn’t come with a few quotes from Twitter.
Though might this be the reason Twitter’s growth has stalled? Twitter, as I recall the early days, was about personal updates (don’t scoff) and observations. Alas, the ambient community awareness has been replaced by dry information and one-way statements.
People forget how folks left MySpace and YahooGroups en masse back in the day to places like Facebook and Twitter. Folks followed their friends to continue the conversation. The kids these days are not on Twitter, but on places like Instagram, SnapChat, and WhatsApp. That’s where their friends are and that’s where they share personal updates (makes sense, which is why you don’t scoff) and observations.
There is a limit to how may folks want to use the Twitter megaphone. And perhaps Twitter has acquired as many people or bots as they will acquire. With the original heart long dead and cold, Twitter isn’t really that interesting a place to hang out with friends.
What do you think?
Image from The Verge
