The Twitterverse is Expanding

I've noticed an interesting trend over the past few months. It seems that more and more people I know are joining Twitter. My follower count is rising, my friends' counts are rising, and the tweets are flying like dookie in a room full of monkeys with typewriters.

At the same time, I'm also noticing a downward trend in IMing and in TXTing. People seem to favor Twitter, whether it be blanket posts to the Twitterverse, replies, or direct messages. Since it's accessible from most mobile and internet-capable devices, it's definitely got legs.

But does it have guts?

I'll admit, I rarely hit Twitter.com directly anymore. I have clients for my PCs and my iPhone: TweetDeck for PC, Twitterrific and TwitterFon for my iPhone. I use Twitterrific mainly for posting TwitPics (quick uploading of photos with a short URL for tweeting), while using TwitterFon for my main mobile reading and writing. I remember Twitter having all sorts of issues with bandwidth - the FAIL Whale (pictured above) made some frequent appearances this past fall. But they seem to have stabilized the site and service now, from what I've seen.

If the trend for short, quick online nonsecured communications is quickly turning to Twitter, I'm wondering what that will mean for its future, and what that means for public IM services down the road. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. For now, I'm really enjoying Twitter, and through the connections I've made so far I am already impressed at just how much more accessible the internet has become.