"It raises the question about whether there is an opportunity for an alternative to Twitter to emerge, and what it would take for it to establish a foothold."

"It raises the question about whether there is an opportunity for an alternative to Twitter to emerge, and what it would take for it to establish a foothold." I'd say there certainly is an opportunity for an alternative to Twitter or any established site, just as there was room for Facebook to dethrone MySpace and Google to dethrone Yahoo! and all the rest. The much harder part is establishing a foothold. Twitter was founded by an established player and gained initial users from the core tech people long before it gained wide acceptance. Facebook had Harvard and college campuses long before the parents of those students joined Facebook. What group will adopt the Twitter alternative first?