Finally.
Social Networking is no longer for college students and for kids. ComScore reported that Twitter traffic increased 700% in February 2009. And Get this…
Those aged 45 – 54 form the majority of active users on the site.
I, personally, never gave Twitter a chance. It made no sense for me to keep up with anyone using this tool. Why tell people I'm eating a pizza? Or I saw a car drive by.. Three letters to that. Zzz.
The article goes on to mention that “Overall, worldwide visitors to Twitter were close to 10 million in February, noted Radwanick. Traffic growth in the U.S. alone has grown 1,000% year over year, hitting 4 million visitors in February.
Incredible. In the past three days, I logged into twitter and half the time, I got an error message telling me that there were too many users. The last time this happened to me was in 2005. It was on MySpace (which I never use).
Do you know what happened to MySpace around that time? Fox found value in it and bought the company.
I predict, therefore, that the rumors of Google buying Twitter may have more truth than anyone realizes. If facebook felt there was value in copying Twitter's one-line news feed (without success, at least initially), then I believe the “goodwill” (in accounting terms) value of Twitter is increasing exponentially. At least its value could be correlated to rising traffic and membership growth.
Even GOOGLE has Twitter.
To put my online vanity in the context of twitter. In the past week, my number of subscribers have doubled. This is not due to the finance “get me rich” blog has generated traffic, but because my friends have found me.
Subscribe to me.
http://twitter.com/chrispycrunch
…Now. Why? Well, everyone else is so you should too. It's the law of herd mentality.
In the end, the value of twitter will be about the “free” offering generating traffic which generates ads. I have subscribed to various radio stations (chum fm) and bands (Ministry of Sound, Depeche Mode) but have found no real value in tracking my favorite singers and artists. I need video to go with the music. I don't need to track what my artists are doing. It's too much information. Do you?
I even tried to subscribe to Dell.ca's twitter. I found no value in that either. Are you on twitter? If so, post your URL and let's all connect.
Tip: Put your real picture on twitter. I did. I'm a musician! Musicians gain fame by having many followers on twitter (it's not the other way around. Really).
Update: CNET has picked up a story that Microsoft and Google want to buy Twitter. It's a bit of self-irony that I assess the valuation of companies based on actual cash flow earnings. Twitter's asset is mostly goodwill, brand name, and in plain-english…fluff. Its potential, however to generate cash flow might be realized if it becomes integrated with a company like Microsoft or more appropriately, Google.
Disclosure: No stock position in GOOG or FOX on kaChing.com
