There is an eMarketer report, which predicts 37.6 million users by 2013. AdWeek says Twitter had 6 million users last year. Compete.com says there are currently 14 million users in the U.S alone.
Assuming these figures are correct, that’s more than 100% growth in a single year for Twitter, whose start up came in 2006. In just 3 years Twitter has gained almost half the number of users that blogging has gained in 10 years. Greg Sterling of Screenwerk estimates that Twitter will have 50 million users by next year. If he’s right then there could be more Twitter users than bloggers by the end of 2010, compared to the more conservative estimate of 18.1 million users that eMarketer offers.
Of course, these are just predictions. Someone is going to be wrong. Still, if we look at growth rates, Twitter will overtake blogging in popularity before 2013. That makes the microblogging service more popular than blogging. But why?
One reason could be because it is much easier to send out a 140 character tweet than to write a 500 word blog post. Most people likely feel threatened by the blog post, but a tweet is like writing a post-it note and sticking it on the fridge. Simple. Right?
Well, it may seem simpler, but the benefits to blogging are much greater. Twitter works best as a tool if you have something to promote with it. Otherwise, for sheer marketing and search engine optimization value, a blog is better.
