Twitter is more interesting to follow than to participate in.   That in and of itself is what I see as the biggest problem with Twitter maintaining its current popularity.   It’s the public-voyeurism into those more famous than yourself that seems to be driving Twitters mainstream acceptance. But in the end, very few people are active Tweeters:

Especially as Facebook adopts more and more of the Twitter features into itself, Twitter becomes increasingly more reliant on “celebrities”  (not just actors & actresses but other well-known people: politicians, pundits, authors, etc) to maintain it’s importance.  This is unfortunate as I finally, after 2.5 years, found a true use for Twitter: Real-time news.

The Iran elections were the tipping point.  While CNN and the other news networks droned on incessantly about “non-news”, the Iran elections were making waves in the Twitterverse.  People’s profile pictures were turning green in a sign of solidarity.  In real-time, people were learning and collating all kinds of details about what was happening in Iran.  Everyone, as a whole, were reporting the news while the news organizations themselves were completely oblivious.

And this is what I’ve found Twitter to be good for.  If you want minute-by-minute updates of some event, or to discover what happened on your favorite TV show that you missed, Google is not your friend; Twitter is.  CNN or Google will tell you about it in a few hours or Google will tell you about it in a few hours.  Twitter Search will tell you now.  Now Twitter has a point.