The Humpback Fail Whale

Is this it? Has Twitter finally past the peak of its popularity?

Chances are, it hasn’t. But it is interesting to see some recent reports showing the first hump in usage in the micro-blogging site’s brief history, despite its seemingly ubiquitous nature.

I’ve blogged before about Twitter’s hype before and the challenge the company faces to deliver meaningful interactions in the face of such staggering growth. Marketers and everyday people turn to Twitter to be engaged conversationally. If they don’t get that experience or just don’t understand the tool, they leave.

It’s a simple story. And sometimes it only takes a few minutes for people to make up their minds whether or not to stay in the conversation.

These latest numbers don’t spell doom for Twitter, but they do certainly show that they aren’t immune to the basic facets of social networking.