This post is prompted by discussions related to Twitter and in particular, this post by Steve Rubel.

If you don’t know what Twitter is by now then I’d argue you don’t need to know.

The only people that will get value out of Twitter today are people that use the Internet as a core part of their professional or personal lives (or some combination of the two). Rubel refers to the lack of organisation and this is going to be a major turn off to your average users who is happy with the way Facebook and other networks serve everything on a plate in a personalised fashion.

Twitter will need to evolve considerably to appeal to a mass-user audience. I remember reading about a lot of very switched on social media experts who questioned the value of Twitter when it first came on the scene.

Twitter has hit the mainstream media as the latest social media phenomenon but it’s not new – its been around since 2006. It’s being positioned by the mainstream media as the latest hot thing on the Web and there has been much discussion around its lifespan, future, viability, business model. The geek chic Twitterati feel discovered and are looking for their next big thing as the general population flocks to Twitter to check it out. Nielsen has reported a 1,000+ percent growth rate.

I spend loads of time online

Twitter started to become uncool when Britney and a raft of celebs signed up but surely the fact that it has taken three years to ‘go mainstream’ provides some indication of its relevance to the general population.

I’d say that talk of Twitter’s demise is premature – not withstanding the questions around its business model, which is surely the real issue here.  I’d bet that the vast majority of new Twitter registrations that come as a result of this publicity fade and die very quickly – having zero impact on the activity that’s going on right now and minimal impact on the protective community of active Twitter users today.

Forrester’s Technographics research found that only 13% of (US) online consumers are Creators.

It takes a lot of time to identify and build your community on Twitter. It works for:

• The digerati – the population that spends a lot of time online
• Thought leaders and those that have something interesting to say
• Individuals promoting their own commercial interest or reputation
• People who want to promote their own content
• People who want to receive randomised news items from ‘authorities’ and experts in their field
• Chat in real-time at real-life events #hashtags
• Those that are generally interested in social media and how it works

You have to invest a fair amount of time in Twitter to generate returns, simply by virtue of the fact that messages don’t hang around for long – apart from anything else. As Rubel points out, it is disorganised and this will be the networks biggest challenge if it wants to retain the mainstream user.

My sense is that large swathes of the general population will quickly migrate back to the familiarity of Facebook and other multi-function social networks. The press coverage will undoubtedly drive a ton of people toward Twitter but I doubt that many will become very active.

The general population would be better advised going to Yahoo Answers! or a specialised social network if they want to tap the opinions of a mixed collection of people on an ad-hoc basis.

The attention paid to Twitter will be a positive thing for the service in the long run – it will also increase its attractiveness of potential acquirers. If Twitter can couple the increased user population with a workable business model then Twitter will remain relevant for a long time to come.

Does the mainstream’s media sudden obsession with Twitter reflect the growing importance of social media OR does it reflect the fact that social media is maturing and there are fewer new things to get excited about? What do you think?

Tags: Blogging, Creators, Forrester, micro, social, twitter