In the old TV show "The Brady Bunch", Jan Brady always feels she has to live forever in the shadow of Marsha, her older, better looking, and more popular sister. She is always trying to outdo Marsha and get the attention to center on her instead of her sister. Jan's schemes would ultimately backfire on her and Marsha would get even more attention prompting her to cry "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha, all I ever hear is Marsha." This on-going story line was used countless times throughout the series and played up even more in the campy movie remakes of a few years ago. The conflict created loads of laughs, often at Jan's expense.
"What does this have to do with Twitter?", you ask. Quite a bit actually. In the online Social Presence, Micro-Blogging, or slow motion chatting world, Twitter is the Marsha to all the other services Jan. Twitter is the older sibling who gets all of the attention and praise, and even if it fails and all you see is a whale, it can't seem to loose for winning. Some of the other sites only see heavy traffic when Twitter is down for any reason, only to see everyone flock back after using their service as a stop gap. There was a stretch of time where it seemed Twitter went down every few hours. People were upset, cried out in anguish, and threatened to leave Twitter for good, only to giddily post Twitter's resurrection on whatever site to which they had evacuated and promptly leave to run back to Twitter.
What makes Twitter so irresistible that people are willing to put up with the issues to stay online? I wondered that same thing myself for a while. After much thought, I think I know some of the reasons why Twitter is on the top of the heap and is destined to stay there unless another service can figure out how to push them off the top.
The first reason is, well, it was the first, or close to it, to engage people via text and web presence. Twitter is designed around a mobile interface, hence the character limit. (And you thought it was to keep you from being long winded). The idea you could use text messages to keep your friend updated on your status and have their updates SMS'd to you where ever you are in the world was revolutionary. The service gave people a central point to keep up with each other and connect in ways they hadn't thought of before Twitter. Being the first on the scene builds a lot of inertia that is very hard to stop.
Second, Twitter is VERY simple to use. As a matter of fact, the hardest thing for me to do on Twitter is confine myself to 140 characters. The site is simple and intuitive and with its SMS short code, even easier to use on a mobile device. If you can text message, you can post on Twitter. Following is easy, you just click where it says "Follow." Simple and to the point has won the hearts and minds of its users.
Another reason for the devotion is it's roots. Many of the early adopters of Twitter were the "Digerati" as well as the technically and socially connect folks on the west coast especially in and around San Francisco. People like Robert Scoble, Kevin Rose, and Leo Laporte started talking about it and the rush was on. Even now, these are some of the most followed on Twitter. Leo alone has a following so large he can bring a web site to it's knees if he mentions it while video casting live. From those movers and shakers and moving outward, Twitter has consistently gathered mass until I feel it is now past the tipping point of moving from early adopter/Geek applications to a real world tool and service that is very close to breaking into the mainstream of consciousness. This critical mass is yet another reason Twitter is destined to stay on top of the heap. Why leave where most of the people you'd want to talk to are staying?
The final reason I am going to talk about is the acceptance by many of the Twitter standard. What I mean by this is most sites which want to build a social component into their own offerings almost always either allow your Twitter Friends to be imported or allow you to cross post from their site. This de facto recognition of Twitter's status has drawn even more people to it.
Twitter is rapidly growing up. Just this past week, Twitter became a major source of information for the whole world during the terror attacks in Mumbai. News was breaking on Twitter more rapidly than the cable news networks could broadcast. This is why Twitter is on top of the heap and is very likely to stay there. This is not to say other social sites will not be around or used. There will always be other sites, but I think many of them will fall into the niche category.
All of the other sites seem to be destined to sit in their corners crying out "Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, all I ever hear is Twitter." for some time. What does the future hold? Well that's a post for another day.

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