Understanding Twitters Growth

One of the hottest recent stories in the tech industry has been the rapid rise of the messaging service Twitter. Starting from a small base of enthusiast users, the service has rapidly risen to prominence in the media, with extensive coverage of its adoption by celebrities. In the last month, Google counted about 65,000 news stories mentioning Twitter, and the web tracking service Alexa reported a remarkable 400% increase in traffic to Twitter.com in the last four months. In April 2009, Alexa reported that daily visits to twitter.com surpassed those to cnn.com:

Beyond Web 2.0

A popular sport in Silicon Valley is arguing about what exactly Web 2.0 is or is not. Is it about collaboration? Social networking? Custom services?
We think the argument misses the point. Web 2.0 is just an effect of a broader trend: the fundamental remaking of the software industry as a result of the Internet.