Twitter is huge, but increasingly, people are starting to doubt its future prospects. As big as it is, Twitter trails behind its contemporary, Facebook, in terms of size, by a factor of three. I have often asked people around me who are users of Facebook but not users of Twitter why they do not use Twitter. Almost unanimously, they say, “I don’t get it.” Probing further about what they “don’t get” merely confirms my own theories.

They “don’t get” the point of broadcasting their thoughts when nobody is listening. They “don’t get” the point of sharing content when nobody is responding. They “don’t get” the point of following the updates of strangers who have very little impact on their own lives. In other words, there is very little “social” (which I define as “reciprocity”) in Twitter. Nobody cares about anybody; everybody is too busy tooting their own horn, oblivious to the fact that nobody is listening. Marketers are peddling their product offers, publishers are promoting their content, and casual individuals are indulging in self-satisfying monologues. It is a market with too many producers and too few consumers.

The true reason for Facebook’s relative success over Twitter is that Facebook encourages reciprocity. Users can “Like” stuff and comment directly on content. This creates a cycle of two-way activity that sustains a thriving community. Twitter, on the other hand, is not built for conversations, especially in the way that it chronicles conversations. The focus is on content creation, not on meta-content activity (other than retweets). Content creators will stop creating content when there is no reaction from the community. Adding a “comments” section for each tweet, for instance, would tremendously increase engagement and further spur content creation.

Of course, Twitter is beginning to introduce some interactivity, with its new makeover. My guess is that these changes alone will not make Twitter mainstream, because the lack of optimization for two-way communication is still unaddressed. Get that issue sorted out, and perhaps the average Joe might start “getting it.”