nobody at Twitter really has a feel for exactly why the core product was successful
My 2 cents...
When twitter launched, Facebook was still closed to the general public, personal "blogs" were popular but somewhat out of reach of the general public (setup complexity), and a lot of people realized that while they had things to say, those things weren't enough to fill a blog.
Twitter allowed people to converse publicly, put micro-blog style opinions out, and do it without needing to register any domains or customize a page (MySpace).
IMO, twitter primarily filled a time-sensitive gap that has now mostly been overtaken by aspects of Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Much of Twitter is kind of paparazzi-like, and if a company came along that really leveraged the celebrity and sports icon base Twitter would fade away to a bunch of "SEO and Marketing Experts" all tweeting pre-scheduled thinly-veiled promos at each other.
My 2 cents...
When twitter launched, Facebook was still closed to the general public, personal "blogs" were popular but somewhat out of reach of the general public (setup complexity), and a lot of people realized that while they had things to say, those things weren't enough to fill a blog.
Twitter allowed people to converse publicly, put micro-blog style opinions out, and do it without needing to register any domains or customize a page (MySpace).
IMO, twitter primarily filled a time-sensitive gap that has now mostly been overtaken by aspects of Facebook, Linkedin, etc. Much of Twitter is kind of paparazzi-like, and if a company came along that really leveraged the celebrity and sports icon base Twitter would fade away to a bunch of "SEO and Marketing Experts" all tweeting pre-scheduled thinly-veiled promos at each other.