Twitter Must Resist the Pressure to Change After IPO, Says Farhad Manjoo - WSJ.com

Excerpt from a timely Twitter reality check

"As I've argued before, most Web services take off by offering an online analogue for activities we already do offline. Facebook is an online phone book, Google an online library, Amazon an online store. These services instantly make sense to new users. Twitter isn't like that. What's Twitter? It's an online ham radio. The activities Twitter is good for—posting public links and commentary, making "friends" with people you don't know offline, following breaking news—aren't mainstream pursuits. Twitter is a natural platform for celebrities, journalists, politicians, marketers, and anyone else who wants to cultivate a public following or connect with strangers. But most people don't have anything to sell, they don't have a brand to burnish, and a lot of us are justifiably leery of posting publicly."

Twitter Must Resist the Pressure to Change After IPO, Says Farhad Manjoo - WSJ.com