In the last 12 months, Twitter has gone from geek obsession to media obsession. The user-base has diversified from the original gathering of web 2.0 geeks, bloggers, and technology early adopters to include Ashton Kutcher, Shaq, Britney Spears, Oprah, the nice lady four cubicles down from you with 30 cats, and probably your aunt and mother. So what happens to the fastest growing social network when it turns the corner from early adopter to mass adoption?

Backlash. (See this….and this….)

One of the earliest negatives people expressed regarding Twitter was the mundanity of many tweets. It was common to hear detractors argue that they didn’t see the value in hearing that someone is watching Lost, or getting ready to dive into a big fat juicy burger, or the very common “I’m hung-over” tweet. But when your favorite blogger is sharing links to fantastic articles, providing insight and thought leadership, and occasionally mentioning that he has the worst gas ever, it’s kinda fun and humanizing. Early adopters liked this unfiltered access to people they liked and respected. People who were building up their brands online liked the ability to keep in contact with people more regularly without having to write an entire blog post. The mundanity was fun, because it was mixed in with valuable information and amusing stream of consciousness.

But as the user-base diversifies the ratio of interesting/valuable information to mundanity/stream-of-consciousness gets out of balance. I am not the only one who feels this way. For those who haven’t see it, out College Humor’s take on Twitter in real life: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1909386

I followed someone recently for a couple months before I realized, this person never says anything of value. In fact this morning I looked at his account and he tweeted 26 times in the last 12 hours and not once did he say anything remotely insightful, interesting, valuable, or engaging…just a crappy twitpic, a few @replies that were roughly 1 word or added no value, or ridiculously lame information about him and his family and their adventures of “driving to work”.

This is why there is a backlash brewing. It’s one thing to occasionally tweet about bad traffic or getting a flat tire or getting pulled over by the cops, when you balance that with links to interesting bloggers, new applications, the latest iPhone rumor, or…anything that might be of value to someone. Keep in mind, I’ve lobbied since day that for Twitter to survive and be successful it ultimately had to diversify and appeal to a broad audience. That means it has to be fun for people who aren’t creating content - just general consumers using it as a social network. That means the good with the bad. General consumers means a shift in the balance of the interesting/mundane.

So Twitter elitists - take a deep breath. This is just a growing pain and ultimately, it will elevate the early adopters as leaders. I’ve learned with media, eventually, quality wins. Broad adoption is not a threat to Twitter, it just might mean you have to be more careful about who you follow back. It means having personal AND professional accounts is likely to be important and apps like Tweetie and Nambu will be increasingly important.

Hold off on the backlash for now, and keep in mind that in order for Twitter to fulfill it’s destiny, it needs the kind of critical mass enjoyed by Facebook. There is a stark difference between using Twitter, and getting value out of Twitter and it’s up to early adopters to help new users find their way.

Now if only we could get Ashton Kutcher to switch to Myspace or something, that would be great.