I agree that Twitter is not as fun as Facebook, so teens may be slow on the takeup. But I'm tired of hearing comparisons to Second Life. Despite seeing numerous presentations about Second Life at conferences over the years, I never heard a single user talk about tangible benefits they received (other than sponsorship ads, which work anywhere you have a large enough audience). Second Life was a big fantasy play area, with many people touting (unfulfilled) promise of business models.
I can name 50 companies who are seeing measurable benefits from Twitter (Dell, Southwest, JetBlue, Whole Foods, Sephora, etc) and others who have built a business on top of Twitter (e.g. StockTwits).
So, Twitter's not as much fun as Facebook and that's probably a good thing. But to tag it as another Second Life just doesn't seem accurate.

Interesting points but I think there's something more to why teens have not embraced Twitter. Texting is also very limited and simple but it hasn't stopped it from exploding with the teen demo. Why not the same with Twitter? Do we need a greater embracing of smart phones with teens before they embrace this? Or are they just fatigued from all the social media hype and noise. I tend to think the latter.

The Second Life reference is a real good one. With all the promises and hype about Twitter being a major game changer, the cynic in me says it is too good to be true. Twitter is an amazing social communication tool but I fear it will not scale well. Once it becomes overrun by companies, marketers, advertisers, and celebrities, it will become thisclose to being spam and noise. If Twitter remains a tool for folks to share information among friends and followers then it will succeed. If it becomes a tool for marketers and companies to "work" folks, it will not. Unfortunately, I don't have much faith in marketers or companies keeping the culture and medium pure.

The kids might just be on to something here...

http://www.gerardbabitts.com/2009/03/26/does-gen-y-know-something-we-dont/

Interesting.

Having been a kid myself once, a very long time ago, and having kids of my own... I think there is something inherently uncool and uninteresting about older people and what they do with themselves. "Why would I want to hang out with my parents and there friends?".

Also, I haven't seen any data to support this, but my guess is that many 35-49 year olds learned about and/or were attracted to twitter in the mainstream media...in my case, TV news and talk radio. How many young people pay any attention to mainstream media?

And all the start-up's being driven by people over 35 must not really "matter" either, right?

Our cultural youth-fixation has muddied the issue of youth adoption of innovation to the point where it is assumed that only people under 30 drive new technology, and if they aren't driving it, then it must not matter, right?

It makes perfect sense that Twitter would actually skew more towards a 30+ crowd. It is more utilitarian and less narcissistic than some other social media.

That could well give it lasting usage by the post-college demographic.

Frankly, I think the youth market is a little over-rated in this economy. I'm here to celebrate the fact that Twitter is for "old people" (I'm all of 43). Additionally, not all that is cool is discovered by 20-somethings and teen-agers. It's time to think differently. Twitter, doesn't need the validation, and is quite possibility a sustainable phenomenon precisely because it wasn't discovered by a more "tech-transient" demo. Plus, I've been trying to reach that allusive 35-49 year-old demo on the web for quite some time. Long live Twitter! That's my $.01 (my advice is only worth half in these hard times)

www.twitter.com/bcavanaugh

it makes me think it's the new Second Life

That old chestnut? The numbers on Second Life never added up - it's never had more than 500k human being worldwide participate.

Even a cursory glance at the Twitter numbers shows they are doing much, much better than this.

I'm not trying to compare Second Life and Twitter head-to-head.

What I'm simply saying (as Gerard Babitts mentioned) is that the "hype" about Twitter being "the new Facebook" and changing the nature of social media communications - is exactly that - hype.

Twitter is a valuable tool but I would argue that it isn't as lifechanging and interesting as many would have us believe.

The comparison to SMS/text messaging isn't as realistic - SMS/text messages are a one-to-one medium, whereas Twitter is a mass broadcast medium. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to select which Tweets I receive or not. I HAVE to receive every tweet from every person I follow - which isn't respectful to the expectations of most younger people - that they want to be able to chop and change, to customise their interaction.