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My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter.

IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter.

Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user.

The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms.

It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?

I used the college kids example not as a "twitter is meant for younger people" example. It's the fact that college campuses are usually good predictors of technologies and apps that are gaining mainstream popularity. Ironically Facebook is growing heavily in the older segment, which is making the "Facebook stealing twitters thunder" even more important.

Another overlooked demographic of the twitter userbase is the urban segment. A ton of rappers use the service, hence bringing more fans. Go look at most of the hashtag trends on search.twitter ie- #whyursingle. Almost all of the responses are from an urban/black audience. I think there's some X Factor there, as it could turn twitter into something more mainstream. I don't know.

I prefer the simplicity of Twitter: I don't want pictures, I don't want video, I just want the info. (The only reason I'm on Facebook is because I am a college student and my peers are all on there.) I also feel that Twitter better facilitates useful information exchanges which is harder with the clutter of Facebook.

As far as the urban audience, I think one of things that makes Twitter a little closer to MySpace is that ability to customize your background. I think that might be a part of it, but certainly not all of it.

Rapper mentions and urban demographics didn't save the T-Mobile Sidekick. I don't think it's a meaningful indicator of larger things.

it certainly helped it spread and gain adoption.

To a point. It never hit the mainstream in a big way.

i wondered yesterday what new earthquake had brought down twitter, it turned out just being america waking up and twittering too many #ripbig

I've made some useful/interesting local connections and a few friends on Twitter. I think it can be useful for niche interests, be it hacking, food or music. The problem is that users need to be patient and discerning in developing a good list to follow. I've found much more value in finding new contacts on Twitter and more in maintaining distant relationships on Facebook.

I'm not sure where I stand on Twitter. But to add another datapoint, a speaker at our school(unc chapel hill) asked how many people are on Twitter and about half the room raised their hand. I know for a fact the j-school and b-school are really pushing Twitter use to their students.

What are "j-school and b-school"?

journalism and business school

The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations.

I follow some restaurants in my city, and it is useful for keeping tabs on specials and other happenings around me, but it's almost entirely useless for personal communication - Facebook does it better with more existing adoption.

Facebook and local advertising is going to fuck shit up big time. Once local merchants know they can target: women 24-32 who are single like wine and live within 10 miles of your town. Yeah, that's going to be big.

I agree though, Twitter has an interesting case for local merchants.

Breaking news/news photos (twitpic) depends on Twitter.

Also Twitter really facilitates adhoc, transient groups of "friends" such as SXSW, ACL, conference attendees or elections via hash tags.

"The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from local merchants/organizations."

Where "announcements" == advertisements. Yes, that's the apparent and generally agreed (long-term) usefulness of Twitter.

It might be advertising, but it's advertising where:

1) I opt-in, and can opt-out

2) I pick exactly who I want to get advertising from

3) The "advertiser" can get feedback on how many people are following them, how many new, how many lost, and potentially adjust.

Personally, I'm pretty happy that I can follow my favorite restaurants and they tell me what today's specials are, or I can follow my neighborhood bar and they tell me when they change a keg. If that's the future of advertising, I'm happy to have it.

4) The advertising isn't annoying and/or deceptive.

When I get a tweet from a place I like about what's on special tonight, I don't have something flashing in my eyes causing epileptic seizures. I also don't have boobs in my face making me look.

I'm sure early TV viewers found benefit in advertisements, too. At least some did, no doubt. The Ad industry itself wants consumers to regard their works as "information".

They've found a new vehicle in Twitter -- a tap into a new generation of consumers. They've done it well, for their consumers are actually defensive of their advertisements by virtue of the fact that the Ad is served up via new technology. (i.e. Because it's personal it's more legit? welcome?)

They've surely found the sweet spot of technology and their consumers. Genius.

You've completely ignored my points. I don't care that the ads are served by a new technology. I care that I have complete control over who I am receiving communications from and when I view those communications.

"The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad"

I'd be curious to know the stats on Facebook. I'd guesstimate that only about 20% of my FB friends post on a regular basis. Lots of people are on FB but not terribly engaged.

A ton are terribly engaged at looking at others profile pictures and playing farmville. That's probably all the value about 80% of facebook users get...including myself

Yeah, I think Twitter's lost the communication / social network game. They are a broadcast medium. They are microblogging. It's not about relationships, it's about audiences.

One other thought-- I was one of those <10 tweets users for a while. You keep building an audience and keep seeing friends following you, eventually you start tweeting (or at least I did). So unlike a lot of abandoned user accounts with other services, I think abandoned Twitter accounts might "wake up" down the road.

It doesn't have to be about relationships - I have Facebook for that. An audience can be useful and a lot of fun. I get thoughtful responses to questions I posit and random insights that have affected my thinking. There's some off the wall stuff and that can be fun too.

I think Twitter has a perceived high barrier to entry. If you don't have any friends on it, why would you tweet to yourself? And if you don't tweet, why would anyone follow you?

It's all about who you follow, IMHO.