Will Twitter suffer the same fate as Netscape?

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Yesterday I attended Jeff Pulver‘s 140 Conference in Tel Aviv. I really enjoyed @thekotel‘s presentation, which unfortunately I didn’t film — go to the twitter profile and check it out. Alon Nir is doing a remarkable job there.

The lecture I enjoyed in particular was Yedda CTO Yaniv Golan’s “The 140-characters Netscape,” where he said:

“I believe that in two years the Twitter brand will be in the same position as the Netscape brand is in now: Twitter will be credited with starting the revolution, and paving the road for followers. But at the same time, it will be pushed into a minor position in the market with other players taking the lead or, as is the case with Netscape, will no longer exist.”

It’s an interesting position and definitely a realistic one. What do you think? Do you see each of the big players creating their own Twitter-like services? Do you believe, as Yaniv does, that Twitter should switch to a WordPress type model? Check out the video above.

Ayelet Noff is a partner in Socialmedia.biz and founder and co-CEO of Blonde 2.0, specializing in creating brand awareness , engagement with consumers and overall buzz for brands online. Contact Ayelet via The Blonde 2.0 website , email, or follow her on Twitter and Google Plus.

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Social Media Konsult

Now - That is an interesting thought, but I think it is too easy to just say that every company that starts a revolution is going to be "dead" within a few years. If Twitter plays their cards right, they will still be in the front - of whatever is the "buzz" right then. Best, Magnus Lundin

Paul Balcerak

It's not inconceivable that Twitter will get replaced by a competitor or current third party adopter. What I keep telling people in the news business, though (people who write it off as a "fad") is Who cares? Twitter itself may not be around in five years, but if you think the form of communication Twitter invented is just going to disappear, you're wrong. It's like trying to say bars are a fad. It may be that that one bar is popular now and it'll be replaced by something cooler five years down the line, but that's the point: people will always go to bars.

@yanivg

Absolutely, that was my point :) the Twitter form of communication is here to stay, though the service/brand delivering it may change over time.

@nitemareglitch

You mean Netscape Communicator, not the ones based on the Mozilla source code at all. I think a better comparison would of been AOL, going from a full out service to a stripped down API for sending chats and email. Netscape evolved and changed, became Firefox eventually (even with the mozilla source code being entirely new) Even so, I do not see this happening, Twitter is based in the cloud. Even if the BRAND Twitter goes away, it's API will keep living on. BUT, seeing as you Twitter, and I never heard anyone Netscape anything, I do not think it will go anywhere.