Is Twitter in Danger of Becoming too Cluttered?

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Guest Post:

One problem social networks can run into is spam – whereby users login to a social network and have to shuffle through unwanted offers and emails before reading what their friends had to say. This, however, doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue for Twitter as it is difficult to penetrate someone’s timeline or inbox unless they have opted in to follow you.

However, Twitter could be in danger of becoming too cluttered. Here is why:
Many people want more followers. It is a rush to get more followers as you feel like your voice is being heard, plus everyone online can see how many followers you have. However, often to get more followers, you have to follow more people. So, serious Twitter users whom want to grow their followership may often have 5,000 followers but at the same time they are following 3,000 people. Also, another way to get more followers is to Tweet a lot – so people are often Tweeting 5 – 10 times a day as a way to grow their followership and influence on Twitter.

So, as more and more people follow more and more people – and as more and more people Tweet more often – your Twitter home page (ie: your Friends Timeline) is going to be filled with so much clutter that you are never going to be able to read most of it. So, Twitter may end up being a venue for people to Tweet but for not many people to actually read those Tweets.

Granted, businesses, celebrities, bloggers, and savvy Twitterers will be able to have enough followers whereby their voice is heard. However, for many users, when they write an update – chances are – a lot of people will never see it as it will be mixed in with the thousands of Tweets that people get from people they only followed to try and get more followers or from people they followed just to return the favor…

For example, you have 5,000 followers. Try posting a Twit Pic. 48 hours later, check back to see how many people viewed the Twit Pic. I am guessing it will be under 20%. And, as more of your followers follow more people, this number may decline to under 10% or even under 5% if not lower…

My point – 2 years from now – if you write a Tweet to your followers – what percent of them are going to actually see/read it? I think the danger is that it could be a very low percentage

Article written by: http://twitter.com/Elbst23