Is Twitter So 2010 And Is Instagram Its Replacement?
With a reduction in our attention span, will Instagram push out Twitter?
With the rise in digital technology, the human attention span has shortened from 12 seconds to eight seconds in more than a decade, a recent study by Microsoft Corporation has found.
We are now more fond over quick, instant pictures over the reading of long, monotonous text. So, it is with this view I ask you; Have we moved on from the Twitter platform over a more favorable "quick and flick" picture based platform?
Twitter, found in 2006 in San Francisco is the social media company enables its users to send and read short 140-character messages called "tweets" over its platform base. Historically, the company has over 302 million monthly active users and 500 million Tweets are sent per day. Very impressive.
Its rival ? Instagram.
Instagram is an online mobile photo-sharing, video-sharing and social networking service that enables its users to take pictures and videos, and share them on a variety of social networking platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Flickr. It has over 100 million monthly active members and 40 million photos are uploaded everyday.
Twitter bases its users sharing their thoughts, opinions and general atttitude to just about anything their heart desires. With the reduction in attention span, should Twitter be concerned with the new development emerging for the next generation?
I myself among young and being a Gen Y guy; I like things quick and easy. I am not a fan of reading text and I know a lot of people in my lecture would agree. Although the word limit is there, do I really wanna read text ? Sure, isnt a picture worth a thousand words ?
Young people ( my sister is 14 years old and has it ) bases its operations and capturing unique moments and videos lasting only 10 seconds. They understand the need for that quick moment pic like Instagram.
With this in mind, will Twitter cease to be popular as consumers move towards a more picture orientated movement?
Well, it seems the move has already begun. Growth for Twitter has slowed and the company lost almost $US750 million ($935 milllion) in paper wealth overnight in the US after the company posted first-quarter revenue that fell short of estimates. Instagram, however, is projected to generate about $700 million in revenue this year and $5.8 billion in revenue in 2020, according to new estimates from analysts with Cowen & Co.
As Instagram is owned by Facebook, could this platform be the new "Twitter": the best of both worlds per say? Either way, Twitter is losing money and needs a new idea to generate new excitement.
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