Ever since the Twitter launch, people have been trying to convince me that the service is important – some go so far as to say it’s a vital part of the internet community. While I agree that it is somewhat of a phenomenon, I’ve never come around to see the real point of Twitter. The only thing that’s good about Twitter is that it’s free, and it seems even the Twitter-using population agrees.
The story comes courtesy of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s 2010 Digital Future Study, which found that a mammoth zero percent of Twitter users would pay for the service. Zero. Now, part of that is certainly that it’s tough to transition users from a free service to a paid model. In the same vein, though, users that truly care about a service will pay to keep it alive. Ninja Video, a video site that was recently raided by the feds, had sizable donations from its members, even though it wasn’t required for use of the site. The fact that Twitter is ZERO percent – not 0.8, not 0.6, not 0.005 – says a lot to me.
No, this post is not invitation for your views on Twitter. I realize some people think it’s valuable. Some people Know it’s the greatest thing in the world. If it was that important, though, you’d probably be willing to pay for it.
