I believe that Twitter will stand tall and be able to weather the storm of any potential competition from future interactive web applications/search technologies such as Google Wave, Bing, and others. Here’s why:
1) EASY TO USE / SIMPLICITY OF FORMAT
“So easy, even a CELEBRITY can do it!” (haha)
2) PEOPLE LIKE IT
There just seems to be something about that 140 character status update box! In spite of the fact that it can often be challenging to squeeze all you want to say in one post of that length, there’s just something really cool about the quick, communicative aspects of Twitter that people really like (and the effect that celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Asthon Kutcher have had by using Twitter has been, in my opinion, more of a good thing then bad, in terms of spreading its popularity and attracting more users).
3) INTEGRATION WITH OTHER PLATFORMS
Many Twitter users have, for example, already set up Twitter/Facebook integration (you can choose to have all your Twitter status updates also be used as your Facebook updates), make Twitter status updates via SMS text on your mobile phone, and use a wide range of third party-developed apps like Tweety, Tweet Deck and several others to manage tweets from people you follow. Popular free, open-source Web publishing platform WordPress offers several apps (called “plugins”) developed by third-party users that allow WordPress publishers to do such things as: tweet their latest posts, make posts of their latest tweets, show Twitter feeds in various kinds of ways, etc. And in the future, even if platforms such as Google Wave become the absolute “tidal wave” that some predict, Twitter should be able to be used in conjunction with them, much as it does with other web publishing software already (you may have noticed, if you watched the Google Wave video clip introducing some of the upcoming new features of Google Wave, that the developers clearly showed an example of the incorporation of Twitter embedded in Wave 
.
4) SIZE OF NETWORK
There are millions of dedicated Twitter users worldwide sending over 3 million messages a day, with more and more people setting up new Twitter accounts every day!
5) MEANS OF QUICK INSTANT COMMUNICATION W. USERS WORLDWIDE
Ever do a search on a term you are interested in, and see the results/latest comments on that particular topic by users that look interesting? Ever watch the latest tweets made by all of the users you are currently following when you click on the ‘Home’ link, maybe click on the Twitter profile of someone referenced in a RT or #followfriday? You probably have, and you should if you want to maximize the benefits of using Twitter!
6) MEANS OF BLASTING OUT QUICK NEWS/EVENT ALERTS OR PRODUCT UPDATES IN REAL TIME!
You may already know of the success that companies like Dell, Zappos, Jet Blue, restaurants, and others have had by making quick “blast-style” tweets on their latest products, specials, and other late-breaking news. It is actually a big, essential, money-making tool for several key businesses, and something you can use to catapult the success of your website or business as well .
7) ALTERNATE BOOKMARKING METHOD
One of the reasons I use Twitter is so I will have a link to an article, tutorial, or other item that I think is important saved in my ‘Updates’! That way, Twitter can be used as a way to save bookmarked web pages.
8] SOURCE OF QUALIFIED IMPORTANT INFORMATION
You’ve probably already no doubt found some potentially amazing articles referenced by one of the top Twitterers that you are following, or by clicking on a RT from someone THEY are following eh. Of course in the end, with information seeking and sorting, it all comes down to a process of “separating the wheat from the chaff,” but Twitter helps you to sort out, what in your opinion, will be more of the “wheat”! (Another thing I just thought of here, although of course you can use Twitter for marketing purposes, the platform seems to have a built in structuring for keeping the “signal-to-noise” ratio pretty high, cutting down on the noise. If you see a user for example, who has post after post of primarily crap tweets like “Get rich now in 5 minutes!” or spammy type contents, you can simply not follow that person, or unfollow them if they start to do this.
9) NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
Although this should be readily apparent, Twitter has HUGE potential for you to build up your networking contacts: people you might consider collaborating with on projects (or at least who you’d want to have in your network, so THEY can maybe recommend someone to you, etc), potential customers, clients, or employees (there seems to be a growing number of Twitter-based job directories and posting for all kinds of fields).
Tags: twitter