Friday, March 27, 2009

Everyone's favorite topic

It looks like Twitter's going to finally start cashing in on its popularity. Twitter's preparing to offer enhanced services to commercial users, for a price. They haven't set a date, but it's expected that these services will be launched sometime in 2009. On another note, I think the evolution of Twitter's demographics has been really interesting. A year ago middle aged men were the biggest group of users on the service. This year, the largest group of users are now 18-34 year old males. It started out as a tool of the technocrati, and I think those roots are reflected in these demographics. I also find it interesting that the majority of users make over $60k per year, with 28% making over $100k. On the flip side, young people aren't using this service, with only 1% of their users coming from the 12-17 age bracket. By comparison, 30% of Facebook's users come from that age group. What does that mean for Twitter going forward, as those 12-17 year olds grow up? I'm also really curious about how the vast ecosystem of Twitter based applications are going to respond if twitter starts charging for access to their APIs? 

I know, enough about Twitter. Just one more thing: I wouldn't be surprised if the Twitter brand fades into the background, supplanted by the vast and growing ecosystem of apps and services based on their technology. I fully expect that "tweeting" will be the generic term for microblogging by the time those 12 to 17 year olds start entering the work force. 

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