I think it's essentially part of the fabric of the Internet today, and far less replaceable than something like Facebook
There are many examples of communication mediums getting abandoned suddenly and rapidly on the internet, just off the top of my head there's BBSes, ICQ & MSN Messenger. Even email to an extent, I get much less personal email than I used to and it seems to be much less common for young people to have their own email address.
What people use to talk on the internet seems to be an incredibly faddish thing.
That's true, but the point the article makes is that Twitter is not primarily a tool for talking to people you already know, but instead for publishers/content creators to broadcast their material. These sorts of things change much less frequently: I never got an ICQ message from the New York Times, but I sure get a lot of tweets from them.
There are many examples of communication mediums getting abandoned suddenly and rapidly on the internet, just off the top of my head there's BBSes, ICQ & MSN Messenger. Even email to an extent, I get much less personal email than I used to and it seems to be much less common for young people to have their own email address.
What people use to talk on the internet seems to be an incredibly faddish thing.