Fast Company interviews Twitter Co-founder Ev Williams about how this hot new business started and evolved.

Ev Williams’ first hit business, Blogger, was a side project.  Blogger quickly grew into the most popular blogging platform and was acquired by Google.  Four years ago Ev was involved with a company called Odeo and that generated another now-famous, fast-growing side project, Twitter.

This interview reveals a bit more about the phenomenon called Twitter.

This excerpt from the interview explains why Evan is excited.

Q: What do you think the future will hold for Twitter?

A: We really believe Twitter is potentially massive in terms of its impact on millions and millions of people. I believe it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever worked on. We have high hopes for it. We’re not looking to sell it anytime soon. We’re just looking to execute right now and get it to as many people as possible. I don’t know what that number is, but I think it’s as big as the biggest Internet successes out there today. The more I work on it, the more I see opportunity.

If you are on Twitter you can get Evan’s tweets by following @EV.

The Curious Genius of Twitter - Fast Company.com

Rumors are that Google made an attempt, Facebook admits a recent attempt, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos already invested last June (2008).  The most recent investment is reportedly

TechCrunch reported on 1/24/09 that Twitter turned down a $500M purchase offer. 

In mid-February a $35 million investment in Twitter at a $250M valuation made headlines.

On 3/4/09 Business Week did a feature article on the red hot 3-year-old, and that same day Motley Fool speculated that Eric Schmidt’s recent comments could mean Google will acquire Twitter soon.

The latest investment supposedly was too attractive to resist.

Twitter reportedly took in about $15 million back in June, 2008.  With the recent $35M and prior investments that comes to about $55 million invested so far.  Stay tuned to see if Motley Fool’s prediction is true.  Personally, I think they will be acquired by Google, but not so quickly.  Co-founder Evan Williams already sold his last business, the famous Blogger, to Google so he’s been there and done that.  He doesn’t likely need the money, but they know each other well.  I predict Twitter will hold out, grow as fast as possible and will probably take something in the range of a $1 to $2 billion offer within 18 months.

Twitter Has Potential Buyers Atwitter - Business Week - 3/4/09
As the microblogging service explodes in popularity, the suitors are lining up. Facebook has already made a play—others will likely follow.

Twitter Gets Help from Bezos - Business Week - 6/26/08
Funds from the Amazon founder and Spark Capital will help the “stressing” microblogging outfit rebuild its technology

An index of Business Week articles about Twitter can be found here.

Stats released in November 2008 confirm that the influence of Mass Media is declining steadily due to the Internet in general and social media is accelerating the pace.

“Peer-to-peer authority is replacing mass media on all fronts. As information sources, family and friends’ advice rose from 44% to 47% as an information source, while coworker advice went from 23% to 30%.“

From 2006 to 2008 the mass media numbers are eroding steadily while social media is rising rapidly.  This is a classic pattern.  Think ‘buggy whips’.

Magazines down from 23% ro 18%.

TV done from 71% to 65%.

The only traditional media category that rose is Cable TV News - up from 47% to 49%.

But Social Newtorking site interaction grew by 98% during the same period. 

These and many, many other interesting stats can be found here - http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm

(Source: Ketchum Global Media Network and Global Research Network partnered with the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center on this study.)

This is the continuation of a trend that started with the advent of the Web.  Newspaper readership dropped from 58% in 1998 to 52% in 2005.  That decline is accelerating.  Young people now prefer to read news online and never acquire the newspaper habit.

Personally, I never learned to appreciate newspapers.  They are bulky, dirty, and generally inconvenient.  I can read the New York Times on my laptop or iPhone much more efficiently, and easily.  I can start reading during my morning routine, and can continue whenever I have a few minutes of down time on my iPhone, or my laptop. Plus, now I can get better news from bloggers which are focused on the subjects I care about.

The net needs this.  We all need this.  It’s a personal URL that can track you forever.

Some are asking whether it's a good idea.  Some hate the idea, but whether you like it or not, something like .TEL is in our future.  It's just a matter of time.

Have you ever hunted for a person after their email address changed and you lost it?  What about that old friend who changed his phone number?  .TEL hopes to be the new world directory.  Every person, every organization, every business, in one handy directory. 

Will they be successful?  I think so, but even if they bungle it, some one will do this eventually.  It's inevitable.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it will cost you $10/year to be in the directory.  This is masked as a TLD (top level domain) registration fee, but there will be other ways to monetize this and I hope they bring the price down.

Check out this post for another review:  Featureless Social Network for $10/yr

Senior marketing executives in several countries agree that the use of social media for corporate, brand and product marketing is not a passing fad - with nearly half saying it is a vital component - according to research sponsored by TNS media intelligence/Cymfony.

Social Media is a major trend.  You can't afford to ignore it.

Source - TNS media intelligence/Cymfony.

The tipping point is in sight for Open Social, the Open API for social networking initiated by Google, which is supported and promoted by an increasing number of of Social Media titans.

Open Social Primer/Tutorial: Open Social is an emerging standard API for social apps.  It allows sites that support it to support any app or widget that uses Open Social.  This is great for the users and great for the app/widget builders, but it diminishes the advantages of the social networks that use it because their users can get similar apps/widgets/services on other networks that support Open Social. Despite this, none of the really big networks can ignore Open Social because all their competitors will adopt it which will eventually shift the balance of power.

The following graph demonstrates the growth potential for second and thrid-tier social networks that adopt Open Social.

CNET's story is here Ning's Open Social support goes live.