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Has Twitter peaked?

Numbers from three different sources suggest that Twitter traffic is down. Is this the beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, or something in between?

I was just sending a tweet about some excellent chicken livers I'd eaten when I espied some information that made my acid perform a refluctive motion.

According to eMarketer, three different digital actuaries declared that Twitter traffic has performed a slight plummet.

While comScore suggested a drop of 8.1 percent in October and Compete estimated 2.1 percent, while Nielsen, that apogee of accuracy, declared a 27.8 percent decline between September and October.

Nostradamus is on Twitter. Does this secure its future? CC RachScottHalls/Flickr

It seems that these figures, blessedly inconsistent as they are, are not taking account of all the third-party and mobile methods of keeping everyone up with your eating, drinking, reading, philosophizing and socializing.

But is it also possible that some people will simply never participate in the Twitter phenomenon, finding it either annoying, uncool, or even too much effort?

With Twitter intent on becoming more businesslike (why does the word 'more' seem slightly redundant here?), 2010 seems destined to be the year that the microblogging service becomes either de rigueur or dazed and confused.

Will Twitter become a permanent habit or a disappearing, perhaps even elitist, fad? I'll tweet Nostradamus and ask him.

You didn't know Nostradamus is on Twitter? Where have you been?