Twitter, Welcome to the Trough of Disillusionment! [Video]

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CNN had been motivated to ask the question after Nielsen posted stats claiming that Twitter has dismal retention rates, and by Current TV's video parodying the inaneness of celebrities on Twitter.

This all happened, of course, on the same day that one of those celebrities plastered his Twitter name across the front of the CNN Building in Atlanta. (Where the Mashable team is coincidentally staying for a social media event tomorrow.)

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As I tried to explain today (video below), this is all simply par for the course. Twitter, coming out of nowhere, is suddenly everywhere, all at once. Twitter on Oprah! Twitter on The View! Twitter on The Ellen Show! On Gartner's Hype Cycle, which describes the nature of buzz, you might say we're passing the peak of inflated expectations. The Oprah appearance can surely not be topped, and thus Twitter's hype curve must start trending down.

The surprise: it's actually a good thing. Twitter is headed rapidly towards a more stable plateau, just like every other successful startup before it.