Will Twitter Fail? You Decide

The New York Observer, as well as several other blog sites, are predicting the fall of Twitter. Citing phenomenal growth, up to 1,374% between February 2008 to February of this year, the newest social networking site seems like it is unstoppable. But now some are stating that the Tweeters will fail because of attacks by worms or by those who are duping Tweeters. Citing the Amazon fiasco about gay books were banned by the online retailing super giant, it is easy to see how Tweeters can be taken advantage of.

There is even a blog site that covers the backlash that Twitter is facing which states:

Now, with online social networking an accepted way to interact with friends and acquaintances, malware can spread like wildfire burning the dry tinder of casual relationships. The race to accumulate the most number of followers, a goal of many on Twitter, encourages connections that would otherwise not occur in the “real” world. Yet the brain doesn’t always seem to make that distinction. One who might seem threatening or simply give off a bad vibe when met in person is just another anonymous avatar in Twitter. Eons of evolutionary instinct cannot be undone so quickly in the digital age. In short, we are too trusting of those we perceive as friends in the online world.

Additionally, a technique used to save characters in order to stay under the 140-character tweet limit may inadvertently make malware infections easier. TinyURL is a Web site that allows a user to shorten an unwieldy Web link into something more manageable. The downside is that all TinyURLs look alike; there’s no indicator that it may lead to a rogue server in another country or to a phishing expedition. A solution to this problem may be to have a rollover tooltip indicating the ultimate destination of the link.

In the end, though, it will be difficult to see how Twitter will prevent future malware exploits. As Microsoft has learned with Windows over the years, when one vulnerability is closed, the purveyors of such devious code find new openings. It may be left up to the vigilance of the individual Twitter user. But with millions of users, many of them new and inexperienced, that may be too much to ask for.

But will malware alone spell the end of Twitter? How about rumors? What do you think?

Comments welcome.

NY Observer article

Twitter Backlash site