Jumping the Fail Whale?

Many people clamor for the kind of attention Twitter gets everyday. The don’t advertise (as far as I know) and the word of mouth buzz that keeps drives people to create their own language for the medium (tweet, tweme, tweeps, etc.) is remarkably high.

That’s why I think it’s funny when I see the effects of overexposure start to sink in.

Sure, it was neat when Ashton Kutcher became a member.

And it was kinda cool when a fake Dali Lama made his way in.

Then came John Meyer. And P-Diddy. And Perez Hilton. And Britney Spears. And Miley Cyrus. And, well, you get the picture.

I think there’s a limit to the effectiveness of celebrity support. For every new high profile account, thousands more are inclined to join as well. Any time growth is measured more on quantity than it is on quality, that’s where we start to see trouble. The conversations become less important and people start to focus more on the number of tweeps that are following them.

This is the MySpace Dilemma. The purpose of the platform is replaced by the glamour of being in the inner circle and, as well all know the fate of MySpace, popularity is fickle and crowds are wont to move to the next big thing.

There are plenty of suitors to fill the void that Twitter will leave if it fails to facilitate real conversations between its users. Sure, the attention Twitter gets now would lead you to believe they’re on top of the world but unless there’s no platform there to hold them up, it will be a mighty fall down back to Earth.