People are joining Twitter in droves, but far less than half of them are sticking around more than a month on it. The blogging site that requires users to share thoughts in 140 characters or less has a retention rate of just 40 percent, said David Martin, vice president of primary research for Nielsen Online. That pales to other social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, each of which have retention rates around 70 percent.

"Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty," Martin said in a blog post. "A high retention rate doesn't guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite. There simply aren't enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point."

Read the rest @ Tampa Bay Business Journal

This brief article makes some good points. Although I think the approach may be the wrong one. Social media has no doubt changed the way companies are marketing their businesses and services, but it's even also changing the way some companies are handling their customer service! What we've got to remember is that the big 3 (Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter) are all fads to a certain extent. These mediums are so new, they haven't even solidifed their revenue streams. Myspace isn't the juggernaut it was only a few years ago, and Facebook and Twitter may see the same fate not too long from now.

The truth is, this is the way it will always be. You can't bet all your chips on any of these, yet you have to dive in to all of these. You ride the wave of its popularity, and once your target demo begins to move on, so do you. Early adoption is key, but also easy to pick the wrong one. This isn't radio or tv where your target audience will remain stationary. The internet is and always has been about fads. Yesterday's Myspace is today's Facebook which is looking to be tomorrow's Twitter. How many people remember WebCrawler or chat rooms?

Question is, can you afford not to buy into the fad?