Twitter...again

To follow up on our discussion of Twitter the other day (which spilled out into the hallway and eventually ended up in the grad lounge), it's going to finally start cashing in on its popularity. Twitter's preparing to offer enhanced services to commercial users, for a price. They haven't set a date, but it's expected that these services will be launched sometime in 2009. On another note, I think the evolution of Twitter's demographics has been really interesting. A year ago middle aged men were the biggest group of users on the service. This year, the largest group of users are now 18-34 year old males. It started out as a tool of the technocrati, and I think those roots are reflected in these demographics. I also find it interesting that the majority of users make over $60k per year, with 28% making over $100k. On the flip side, young people aren't using this service, with only 1% of their users coming from the 12-17 age bracket. By comparison, 30% of Facebook's users come from that age group. What does that mean for Twitter going forward, as those 12-17 year olds grow up? I'm also really curious about how the vast ecosystem of Twitter based applications are going to respond if twitter starts charging for access to their APIs? 

I know, enough about Twitter. Just one more thing: I wouldn't be surprised if the Twitter brand fades into the background, supplanted by the vast and growing ecosystem of apps and services based on their technology. I fully expect that "tweeting" will be the generic term for microblogging by the time those 12 to 17 year olds start entering the work force.