The incredible growth of Twitter has led many to speculate on it’s future growth and monetization strategies.
Recently a French blogger hacked into Twitter, finding and revealing some intriguing documents; including merchandising plans, new office floor plans and expected growth over the next 2 years.
According to the documents, Twitter estimated 25 million people worldwide would be using the microblogging service by the end of 2009, 100 million people by the end of 2010 and 350 million by the end of 2011. That’s 300% and 250% growth over the next 2 years – astonishing numbers.
However, eMarketer calculated much more conservative numbers – 12.1 million users by the end of 2009, and 18.1 million in 2010 – that’s only a 82 million user discrepancy between the two estimates. With a growing number of spammers and still an unknown revenue stream, it’s hard to image hitting the 350 million user mark in 2011.
All this and recent findings by Nielsen Online that found only about 40% of new users return to actually use the service – that’s a lot of buzz without the substance.
Regardless, their current user base is enough to solidify their legitimacy and credibility as a viable medium. And with some pretty good monetization ideas out there, it’s hard to image they won’t figure out a solid growth strategy.
Nevertheless, Twitter continues to grow, increasing it’s mainstream adoption and adding to the ever growing number of “social media experts” out there.
