Twitter Becoming a Fancy Feed Reader

Twitter users not so social after allA recent report covered on cnnmoney.com says that an astounding (to me anyway) 73% of registered Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than ten times ever.

This seems to suggest that these users are using Twitter more as a feed reader or news aggregator than a social network.

This has at least one researcher worried about Twitter’s long term growth potential. Paul Judge, who is the chief research officer at Barracuda Networks and author of this report, says that this indicates to him that most Twitter users “came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace,” .

He goes on to say ”The bottom line is, most of these people are getting online because Ashton asked them to,” Judge said. “If those people do nothing after that, [Twitter's] growth can’t hope to continue.”

I am not sure I agree with Mr. Judge’s conclusions, but I do think Twitter can definitely be a one way stream of information, and a good one, if that is what you want it to be. After all, Twitter has broken news on more than one well-documented occasion.

In my opinion, part of the appeal of Twitter is the way each user can adapt it to suit their own needs…whatever those are. And if Twitter ever fails or goes away (self destructs?), something else will take its place.

What about you…agree or disagree with Mr. Judge?

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