Swarm of Rivals Seeking Share of Social Media Pie - NYTimes.com

Signs of the times

"These contenders, some from overseas, are attracting millions of followers, some at a greater rate than Twitter, which has been relatively slow to adapt to these newer forms of communication. And most of these services have something that is harder to pinpoint and that money can’t buy — an element of cool, an intangible factor that makes them more appealing than their predecessors.
Although most of the upstarts are not bringing in significant revenue — and Twitter has been losing money — for investors the question is which services will attract the most users and the most advertisers."

Swarm of Rivals Seeking Share of Social Media Pie - NYTimes.com