Good-bye Twitter?

Over the past year, I've been bouncing back and forth between two conflicting ideas about Twitter. This post isn't about business advice, or whether you should be on Twitter or not.

Before we go further, for reasons I don't discuss in this post, I think you absolutely should be on Twitter if you have a business or are trying to grow a business, but for now I'm putting in my "regular-joe" hat and ranting a little bit about the future of Twitter.

One idea tells me it's going to take off --this is Twitter's year. And the other idea is that Twitter is dead, --why doesn't it just shut down already!?

I have written a few articles about Twitter recently encouraging you to grow your Twitter account. See: How to get 1000s of followers on Twitter and How to Grow your Twitter Account. But then the most recent post I wrote about Twitter explained how to unfollow everybody and in a way, start from scratch.

One of the caveats about unfollowing everybody on Twitter was that a massive amount of people will also unfollow you. And this proved to be true. I had about 8200 followers and within 48 hours I had lost about 500 followers.

But you know what? I didn't care. It didn't matter anymore. Most of the people that unfollowed me were just reciprocating. They were "unfollowing me back" in the same way that they followed me back in the first place. I don't need those followers, I want to earn your follow!

Back in 2011, or even 2013, I would have felt bad about losing that many followers in 2 days, maybe I would have been sad, but this time I was indifferent.

Even though I bounce between both feelings about Twitter, I've been leaning more towards the notion that Twitter really is doomed, even Jay Baer thinks so. Twitter reminds me of a fish that has been out of water for a few minutes too long and it's starting to gasp for a rush of oxygenated water.

Twitter reminds me of a fish that has been out of water for a few minutes too long and it's starting to gasp for a rush of oxygenated water.

For a moment, last year we thought Donald Trump would be one of the saving graces of Twitter, and I believe his antics have attracted a large number of new users to the platform, but at the end of the day, It seems that even Trump can't save Twitter.

Twitter's stock is down and has been on a steady decline for a while now. I expect that Twitter as we know it will close down in the next 18 - 24 months.

Maybe a big media company will just buy its data and intellectual property, but I just don't think it can survive in its current course. It has issues of censorship and favoritism, where it used to be all inclusive and once helped spark revolutions.

[bctt tweet="Twitter used to be fun. Now it's just an automated stream of bots talking to bots." username="notagrouch"]

Please tweet that! The interaction with a human being is scarce. I appreciate and seek genuine interactions but they are so rare.

Now Twitter feels like a burden, like something you have to do if you're an online marketer or a social media manager, and maybe even if you're a small business.

The only saving grace for Twitter right now is that there isn't anything quite like it out there or anything that can replace its potential. Keyword: potential.

Snapchat has more mindshare than Twitter ever did, but it's cumbersome and arrogant, and with an IPO coming up soon, its future is going to be tested as well.

Twitter doesn't know if it wants to allow long format posts or stick to the tired 140 character limit. You can post videos and photos, even live video but none of it works as well as it does with the other guys. Video is better on Youtube, photos are better on Instagram, and Facebook live video is dominant.

They keep throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks and so far nothing has stuck and I feel like they're running out of stuff to throw up.

So why stick around on Twitter?

For the time being, I'm keeping my account because of a few friends --see my Code42 list. Oh yeah, and also for the savagery that is @Wendy's account. Forget Donald Trump, maybe Wendy's will save Twitter.