Is Twitter Becoming Too Complicated?

Some time last year, I discovered a simple infographic detailing the stages of getting Twitter. It is rather funny, some may say in a deprecatory kind of way, but if you think about it, the stages are rather accurate. They are as follows: complete inability to understand Twitter, trying and failing to enjoy Twitter, Ohh, so that’s what’s Twitter is all about, and addiction to Twitter.

I don’t know which stage you are at, but the chances are that you are beyond the first two stages. After all, the microblogging platform has more than 500 million users, with “only” about 200 million of them active. That’s a whole lot of users, in spite of the discrepancy between the two groups.

Why do you like Twitter?

If you are an active Twitter user, living in the stream, have you ever asked yourself why you like the platform? Personally, I like how I can find a lot of links I find interesting and how easy it is to send out a quick tweet whenever I feel like. It also has something to do with the people I follow and interact with – it just seems that the platform gives me more value.

In general, people seem to like Twitter because it’s designed to let users share whatever it is they want to share quickly, in the moment, and without too much of a hassle. Twitter is simple.

But is Twitter overreaching?

Twitter has gotten huge, so huge that you won’t even know everyone one worth following unless you take active steps to do so. More so, the platform has introduced many new features that go beyond the original “share your thoughts in 140 characters or less” idea. In recent times, we’ve seen the Twitter-Instagram clash, with the former doing a copycat act with its filters (although I do admit to liking that).

Then even more recently, Twitter ventured into the video scene, with Vine. And we know how that was not exactly a clean launch.

This leads to the question of whether or not, in its effort to expand, Twitter is losing sight of its beauty: simplicity.

One could argue that it’s all still simple – even Vine is video sharing cut down to bare bones. On the other hand, it might be that piling feature upon adding feature might result in the platform losing its charm.

For now, I think Twitter has not lost its allure for me. The basic idea is still the same, and it’s really not that complicated, is it? What about you?

[Image via IconEden]