Hi everyone!

I am new on the website and I think you have a great thing going here.
I come from an Old Economy fortune 500 company and I can that
Twitter (for Enterprise ) would be nothing but a massive distraction for our company.
we don't need constant messages on the minute/on the second.In fact they amount to nothing more than a distraction for us.And I see fromthe poll that the majority of users on this website agree with me.

In fact,the way I look at it,it creates more distractions and decreases focus on core- activites,which is what we need to concentrate on right now.

In fact I think its similar to working in a Call-Center,all those employees get so bugged within 2-3 years that they move out and look for something else!Think about it when you are constantly interrupted by a stream of messages how can you get any work done?

Twitter is only good for useless Gossip.

I agree, most people don't get Twitter. There's nothing wrong about that, not everything is made to go mainstream. Some people are more cautious about who they tell what they are doing, when, where, how, etc., some people don't have time and some others simply don't think anyone cares.

One thing I've seen is that the people with the business model are those who are using the twitter network to advertise, for a business or for themselves.

Twitter has to support all those users, but without anything in return. And those power users are probably the ones that cause the downtime.

(And like everyone else has said) I don't support it, but Twitter does have a chance.

To be up front, I am both an active Twitterer(Tweeter? Twitterite? Twittatarian?) as well as being a person who voted in that poll that twitter is a fad and will fad away. When looking at twitter, there are several points of view to take in regards to it's long term survival expectations.

The first of which is the user side of things, the web is constantly evolving with new and different things for us to waste time playing with. Look at it in terms of social networking sites, the first one I was on was Friendster, then after awhile a new one called Myspace popped up and everyone I knew abandoned Friendster and moved to Myspace, then Facebook came out and almost everyone I know on Myspace put up messages saying "I'm now on Facebook instead, come find me there".

This is where I stopped caring, it is always going to be a new site, with new features, and a whole bunch of new work added to my day to try and keep up with it, and for what? To share pictures and intra-site email? ENOUGH! I have regular email you can send me a message to and I don't need to double or triple upload my photos because I have a photo hosting with all my pictures on it, which actually lets me put hi resolution photos up online, so why do I need any of these sites?

One major benefit I would like to thank Myspace for are the Bulletin  feature, this has helped empty my regular email box of all those awful surveys and chain letters that used to clog it up, now I don't have to deal with those so I can better catch up on my daily recommended serving of SPAM along with the occasional real email from an actual person.

Then we have the business point of view of Twitter, which as everyone has seen on here, there doesn't appear to be much of a business plan, so what really is the business? There are no ads to generate revenue, no charges to users for posts, no subscription fee, no charges for message sent to phones or anything else. So where is the money coming from? How can they pay staff, hosting, texting costs if there is no apparent way for them to generate a cash flow? or are the people who run it just planning on being one of the Venture Capitalist failures that exists out there and enjoy their run and then close up shop when all the money is gone and move on to something new? When voting in the poll it was hard to choose between the fad away and the acquisition of Twitter for my answer.

The only thing that makes Twitter different is the text message to a phone or Blackberry or whatever other device you are using nowadays, which is what causes another kink in the switch for Twitter,  people don't have to go to your site to get their tweets, so a revenue stream is then lost since they won't see any ads that end up on your site.

When thinking about twitter the closest parallel I can compare it to is an instant messaging system, they are mostly only able to survive as pet products and services of a larger organization. MSN, AOL, Yahoo, MySpace Messanger or GChat are the ones that come to mind right away. They are all fairly successful, but they are not a business by themselves, even one that tried, ICQ, was bought up by AOL. Any others out there are either just front ends to connect into these same services, or they are so small that no one uses them so they don't succeed.

As far as my use of twitter, I have 8 people I follow where 7 of those follow me, and then I have 3 other random people that follow me for reasons only a higher power would know. I know those 7 people personally, see them face to face often, so it makes sense, it's supplementary to my normal every day life where me and those people tweet things that others may or may not care about, my GF often tweets about whatever random places we are driving or how awesome a meal we just had at a new restaurant was, all while she sits in the passenger seat of my car on the way to our next destination.

In a sense, it feeds both our egos to think that people actually care about the mundane aspects of our lives, it makes us feel connected in what has really become a very disconnected society. We blog, we email, we share photos, we do all these things with vast groups of people, but we do them all alone at the same time.

I had a point when I started this response, but I have lost it at this point due to too many distractions, I think I should go take care of those problems the end users are having... maybe even tweet about it while walking around...

Hi Natalies_mommy,

I saw someone's status update on facebook with a via twitter label on it.  I've yet to figure out how to do it however I know it can be done.

I'm not much of a talker on the phone for personal stuff(working to break out of that habbit) so for me it's much simpler to text/type/microblog something. 

I see twitter as a winner within the next 24 months.  I'm certain they will scale their service to accomodate(sp?) new and upcoming mobile devices vibrant capabilities. I bet you will be able to twitter to your dorm room's door display and your home phone and other devices...it might even become text to audio with a synthesized voice...I guess a market would need to open up for cheap internet appliances first..before that can take place(plus IPv6 fruition)?

we all found something better to do with our time. I may be a step behind here but i actually like not being constantly attached to my computer/internet connection 24/7 (don't get me wrong i like having the OPTION.....but as a necessity i would go insane looking for the next wifi). As it is now it takes me 2 HOURS to check my e-mail, facebook, myspace, friends blogs, internet evolution, and a few other random parenting boards i am a member of! If i want to know what someone is doing i'll send them a text, pick up the phone and call them (while i tackle the above list), read their blog. I can see where the prevous poster had a good use with live radio shows and twitter, but twitter only allows us to be even more glued to our internet connection than we already are!

 I think twitter has a place, but with the general public im not sure it's going to be the next facebook! There are just better things out there!

In re, "If it goes down, it'll be because something better replaced it. Not because it lacked active participants..." 

I can add to that "Goes Down" list without breaking a sweat. It will also be because:

--Twitter was poorly run

--its recurring service disruptions force less evangelized users to competitors' sites, or back to the way they were doing it, pre-Twitter

--like many ideas founded on a wing and a prayer and a couple angel investors, Twitter couldn't actually convert attention into a revenue stream, much less a profit. There are plenty of sites that have been way more useful then Twitter that either sank or were acquired.

This just tells me that 50+ % of Internet Evolution readers haven't figured out how to use Twitter successfully. Yet. Of course they don't see the value and predict failure.

I use it to

--keep up with family all over the country. Much more like living in the same town when you see everyone talking to each other all day.

--read political gossip. Spreads like wildfire on Twitter.

--Talk back to my favorite local DJ. He live tweets his show, and when I want to comment on a song or some outrageous statement, I just send a tweet. It's faster and less of a commitment than email or phone calls. 

If it goes down, it'll be because something better replaced it. Not because it lacked active participants. 

Nicole, I agree with you 100% on the following comment

Re: Not finding a place on Twitter... I think it's hard to find a place on a social media site unless all of your friends are actively on there. I have a Twitter account and find that, despite having some followers, I'm mainly talking to myself on Twitter and generally feel like an idiot doing so.

My have some friends on twitter that follow me and I follow others as well.  But as you mentioned, right now I dont feel like posting things like "I am eating dinner at Olive Garden with my family" is not that important for my friends/family to know about...  May be it is good for celebrity/politicians to create an online medium that their followers follow...  I am not that rich or famous to feel that important :)

{ Gaja; }

Oh boy, a chance to be geeky! *grins*  Psych wisdom would suggest that answers to a questionnaire need to be exclusive and as evenly spaced as possible.  So, for example, a 1-7 scale with anchors at either end - both 5 and 6 can not be true at the same time and 6 should mean something different than 5. 

The problem with this scale is that some of the options are either close together or are non-exclusive.  For example, a slowly dying away fad and out of business in a year could both happen, as could getting a business plan and getting acquired (which, by the way, is not neccesarily negative, Gaja).  For that matter, they could become a successful 2.0 and also get acquired.

This should not, however, be interpreted as a defense of Twitter.  My personal opinion is that either a) they'll make a smart partnership for monitization or b) someone else will do what they do, better.  The technology idea is definetly there: the fact that you can get particular types of news there faster than other places is a huge win for them for people that care about that sort of thing.  Which isn't me, but I recognize the market exists.