Andre Yoskowitz
13 Oct 2010 18:14
Evan Williams, Twitter's co-founder, has said this week that he expects the microblogging site to hit 1 billion users, although he would not give a time frame.
Earlier in the month, Williams stepped down as CEO.
Twitter currently has just over 165 million members, but the service has been seeing exponential growth since 2008.
Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group Research says the goal is huge but possible: "A billion does seem a bit aggressive. But I do think, over time, social networking will overtake e-mail as the most popular communication tool. In that light, 1 billion isn't out of reach. Younger people will choose Twitter and Facebook over e-mail."
Kerravala also said e-mail was becoming an "old people's" tool, while Twitter was the modern equivalent.
"Over the next five years, as high school kids go to college and college kids enter the workforce, we'll see a rapid shift away from 'old people' communication tools like e-mail and the phone," he continued. "Twitter allows you to reach out to thousands of people at once."