Andre

Trendy Web sites come and go, in most cases similar to seasonal fashion filling stores only to be replaced a short time later. In a same way as some people dare to wear clothes beyond the original season, some Web sites make it through while others just disappear; some users just keep using them because they like it.

Another kind of Web sites started out with much hype through word of mouth (in the online world, that would be instant messaging and annoying emails) and thus attract many subscriptions in the early stage. However, such sites usually are less than well performing at first, be it cumbersome handling methods, lack of services and features, etc...

This results in a fast growing sign-up rate of people trying out the service and many more just joining because they were "talked into it" by friends. Those talked into it likely will not become active members while many if not most of the very early active users will eventually feel bored by the service and complain about bugs and missing stuff, or move on to the "next big thing". After not too long, most of them will have become inactive users as well.

These new Web sites keep adding and upgrading resources to make the site a smoother ride and often have a hard time coping with the high demand; not seldomly collapsing under the higher than expected sudden surge in users at the beginning. After the active user curve bounces back downwards, better resources are in place and many bugs have been fixed. The sites are more stable and become widelier known through conventional media such as reviews, advertisements, integration into other sites, partnerships... By that time, the sites' active members are well down which leaves plenty of room for new development and implementations (less complains if the service announces maintenance downtimes) and more resources for new features and better performance.

The broad(er) coverage of the sites' features and good performance, the high number of registered users (nobody would ever mention they are mostly inactive) and the newly upgraded and improved services put the sites into the right position to attract their first wave of dedicated users. These users mostly discover the service on their own (read about it, see it somewhere implemented...) and it is their own curiosity and interest which makes them sign up. This guarantees a much higher rate of new active users as those who take the time to study a service often only bother to sign up if the site gives them a certain impression.

Twitter, a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (SMS), instant messaging, email, or desktop applications and browser plugins, adds a note to each update showing when the post was created. Coupling this date information with a location, one can see when the (first) peak time died out.

In an example, Twitter was searched for keyword "hongkong" which would result in all registered users with location "hongkong" being displayed. Out of 35 samples:

• 12 (or one-third) were last active within 6 to 7 months,
• 5 within 4-5 months and
• 4 never bothered to do any update.
• Only 14 are still active.

Similar results can be seen using keyword "hong kong". Often, early adopters are not just bored-between-instant-messaging users but also more "high-profiles" like (keyword "hong kong") Hong Kong International Aiport (user HKG). At the writing of this article, their last Twitter post reads: "09:45HKT: TEMP 29C HUMIDITY 83%. WEATHER FOR WED: FINE AND HOT, LIGHT EAST WINDS HIGHS 33C. NO WEATHER-RELATED FLIGHT DELAYS EXPECTED. 4 months ago from web"