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Shades of "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." But would anyone really have predicted the success of Twitter in July 2006?

• enjo 17y ago
  To be fair: Twitter today is a rather different product as well. Gone is the emphasis on SMS, and instead it's a micro-whatever social thingie.
  • bumblebird 17y ago
    Also, the "success of twitter" still really has to yet be proven. They get data through their free backend message queue, but can that be converted to cash?
    • ctb9 17y ago
      No, twitter is already successful; its growth and reach are spectacular and it could be sold for quite a tidy sum. Was google not a success before adwords, when all it had done was revolutionize the way we sort content on the internet?
      • bumblebird 17y ago
        Sure. In that measure of success, it's wildly successful. But it's not a sure thing they'll be able to monetize it well. Surely the value should be measured based on how valuable it is to each user * number of users. I'm not convinced that's as high as people think. Their retention rates aren't great at all. But if the measure of success is 'can we hype and sell', then definitely twitter are already wildly successful and I'm sure they'll all do fine out of it. (Then whoever buys will probably completely kill it and the cycle will repeat).
  • jiggity 17y ago
    very true, but it's the fact that the founders let it evolve, surviving past the bitter cynicism I think is the lesson here.