22 Characters: Be kind, please rewind

On the day Twitter went public, Blockbuster closed their remaining stores. In 2004, Blockbuster had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. In 1999, Blockbuster went public with a valuation of $4.8B. The decline of Blockbuster was not a surprise but certainly could have been avoided with quicker online adoption or even the purchase of Netflix. In fact, Blockbuster declined several offers to purchase Netflix for a only $50 million in 2000.
So what does Blockbuster have to do with Twitter? Blockbuster was all the rage when it came out but it failed to adapt it's business model. The story around Twitter is how are they going to expand and make money. Twitter will need to discover new channels to make money and it can do so through organic growth or acquisitions. A failure to recognize opportunities to generate new revenue streams could be similar to Blockbuster failing to buy Netflix.
Even though Twitter is the hot site right now, it does not mean that there is not a Netflix out there that will disrupt the marketplace and displace Twitter. Facebook is also in a similar position. As storage drops to pennies, the ability of the consumer to interact will drastically change and Twitter will need to adapt.  The question remains is can they continue to see into the future to avoid a Blockbuster like fate. At one point Myspace was the site to be on until it was overtaken by Facebook. Twitter will need to be equally aware.