Predictions of Twitter's future in 140 characters or less
The first Travel Insights 100 survey results are about to be released. Uptake.com and Tips from the T-List have put together a panel of 100 respected travel bloggers and asked them a variety of questions.
One of the most interesting questions was:
Please predict Twitter's future in 140 characters or less.
I've pasted the results here:
1 More noise and chatter, but more business getting done, too.
2 Twitter will continue to expand user base & face need to resolve bug issues and increasing spam.
3 The "it" thing…until the next big thing comes along.
4 Will continue to be the popular girl in class.
5 Eventually, it will be privatized into subgroups to allow people to talk to only people they really want to hear from.
6 At some point they're going to want money from someone.
7 Something more multi-media-friendly will eclipse Twitter within the next two years.
8 Companies will use Twitter more and more as a marketing tool, creating awareness for their brands and engaging their community of current and potential customers.
9 Rocky road ahead for Twitter: If *everyone* is on Twitter, will users still be able to separate out what's interesting to them form what's not?
10 Marketers take over, everyone unfollows and/or migrates to the next big thing. Or, better, NO CHANGE!
11 It will be acquired by a large corp. that will monetize it, either with ads or by charging to use
12 Twitter will grow in popularity to fulfill it's real-time travel info potential.
13 Twitter will continue to grow and spawn new ways of sharing information online.
14 Tweeting will survive Twitter. Twitter the company will go the way of Friendster/MySpace when Google/Facebook get their act together.
15 ever since Twitter went down, people found it wasn't as vital as we thought. future? it becomes a corporate and PR tool.
16 Twitter will become the go-to source for travel updates and news for the general public - not just for techies. Then it will morph into something unexpected.
17 Twitter will be integrated into something else and won't exist as a standalone product.
18 This post by Cody Brown made a lot of sense to me: http://bit.ly/l15Er
19 I predict Twitter will solve its scaling issues and will grow into a search oriented site for very current information
20 limited interest
21 no monetization - fizzles out
22 It will continue to grow, but mature with users being older - just like Facebook
23 It will continue to be used, but how it is used will change.
24 Ongoing success in real time chat and networking, hindered by increasing spam, MLM and security scares.
25 Twitter will grow to be a more useful part of our everyday lives, like email, cell phones and other communications technology
26 I expect Google wave to take over
27 Twitter or it's predecessor is here to stay in these exponential times! Here comes everybody! :)
28 It will continue to be the great free PR tool that it is now.
29 In five years, Twitter will either be larger than ever, or will be the next Myspace.
30 It will become spam-filled and far less useful
31 Twitter may disappear, but sharing details of one's life will continue to increase in importance and popularity.
32 Microblogging here to stay in some form, maybe not Twitter. Twitter wil have to work hard to maintain popularity eg fix bugs, reduce down time.
33 Twitter will become a main search tool for instant search and answers
34 If my mother ever gets a Twitter account, THEN I'll consider it mainstream...
35 A la Friendste, someone else will improve upon the concept within 2 years.
36 An increasingly dizzying, productivity-robbing feed of genuine news (2%), interest/information/entertainment (20%) & useless minutiae (78%)
37 I think Twitter will remain very popular among the cult, but will never grow much beyond that after the novelty wears off.
38 My prediction? Twitter will be acquired by Microsoft or Google.
39 Will replace RSS as the dedicated blog reader's filter/news aggregator. But only after Twitter does a better job helping users find Twitter-ers who are interested in similar things to them.
40 Will be bought by the likes of Google or Microsoft, primarily for it's search functionality.
41 The future is mobile mass chat that incl. multimedia.
42 I think it is a great tool for folks with ADD, but like everything on the web, something new will come along.
43 Twitter, or a service like it, will continue on a fast growth track. It is part of human nature to communicate and be social and this is how to contribute to the conversation
44 Twitter is not long away from reaching its peak; it will be a valuable tool for marketers for several years to come, but likely to be replaced by similar/better service.
45 Some form of short interaction will survive, but Twitter will morph or be absorbed by a newer brand.
46 Twitter will settle into the norm & cont 2 grow but will rely heavily on 3rd parties 2 enhance the service.
47 Boom, Spam, Filter, Bust, Useful.
48 More companies will be using Twitter to promote their businesses.
49 Lasting but not as necessary as new similar programs move in.
50 Great potential for connecting companies with clients and suppliers.
51 Overrun by marketers
52 Twitter will have broad impact in the market until it gets swallowed up by something better.
53 Twitter will continue to be a popular networking tool, but will be surpassed by a less centralized alternative.
54 Rosy fufute but like all internet things, has to stay "current" to survive. Struggles with the traffic at times.
55 I predict Twitter will be the inspiration for a bigger and better platform.
56 Great idea. I foresee some additional refocusing and restructuring. Can be quite overwhelming with hundreds of tweets pouring in.
57 I think micro-blogging will continue to be a useful personal and news resource.
58 Popularity will continue, but will level off. Monetizing it will be difficult.
59 Twitter and their users will start to make money from Tweeting.
60 Twitter will become as essential a communication tool as the mobile phone: I see it as text-messaging the world
EARLIER
8 travel tips we learned on Twitter this week
Budget Travel's Twitter feed: twitter.com/budtravel