Canadian public relations practitioner Dave Fleet believes the Twitter microblogging service has moved through the Gartner Hype Cycle to the point where it will now quickly become unfashionable. In his  Five Potential Effects Of Twitter’s Shift To The Trough Of Disillusionment Fleet charts the technology’s progress and makes some predictions about what will happen next.

Fleet’s analysis is on the money. But there’s something else going on with Twitter. After a period of stability, the service appears to be changing. Earlier this week the company altered the way users propagate messages – a process known as retweeting.

In other words, Twitter is still evolving. It will probably be a different beast by the time it resumes its progress through the later stages of the Garter Hype Cycle. Or maybe it will be replaced by something else.

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