From a very slow start to becoming a major hit and then loosing its way a bit, Twiends has seen it all. I may be too skeptical about twiends future, but the fact remains that twiends no longer enjoy the monopoly which it used to have a few months ago. Though twiends is still one of the most popular websites on the internet and enjoys huge amounts of traffic, but in the last one year a lot of factors have affected the direction of Twiends. Many a times it has adjusted well to the changing times, but sometimes it has also been a victim of the environment changes.

Product life cycle is the journey of a product from its inception stage to the decline stage. Though twiends is still far from what can we consider its decline, but let’s look in detail the journey of Twiends so far. It has been divided into the following stages:

1. Inception: No, I am not talking about the movie here. I am talking about the stage when Twiends was launched. I came to know about it a bit later, but still those were the starting days of Twiends.I still remember the day when I came to know about Twiends. I was searching for a good ebook on SEO Marketing at “Thepiratebay.org” and I came across a torrent which guaranteed me thousands of free twitter followers. When I opened the text file contained in that torrent, there was just a single word written in that document – ‘twiends’. In my first interaction with Twiends I was simply blown away. I was amazed by its results. More than a website, it was a revolution.
2. Growth Stage: For a website having such a revolutionary idea in its pocket, success and growth are as easy as snapping fingers. And the same was the case with Twiends. With tremendous word of mouth publicity(like the one I witnessed) and intelligently used google ads system, Twiends was on the verge of becoming one of the fastest growing website in recent times. The main factors which boosted the growth of twiends were:

• Using the craze of people, for facebook and twitter, in their own advantage by devising ways to increase facebook and twitter followers.
• Great functionality which gave quick results (the same can’t be said for its website section).
• Tremendous word of mouth publicity.
• Using paid promotional methods, such as Google Ads, as an important way of increasing its website presence.

3. Saturation or Maturity Stage: A website, whose success rests on the success of some other website, is very sensitive to that very website. And the same was the case with Twiends. They are relying on the popularity of facebook and twitter (mainly twitter) and a slight decrease in the popularity of these websites could prove fatal to Twiends. And the same happened with Twiends. The following are the factors which controlled the growth of Twiends to a great extent:

• Lack of Retention value of the twitter followers coming through twiends. They normally follow a person just to earn credit and the moment they earn the credits, they unfollow the person.
• Twiends mainly rests on Twitter (that’s how it got its name). And with passage of time, because of many different issues, the popularity of Twitter has been largely affected. And Twiends had to face the heat of that.
• Twiends never gae due consideration on improving their website section. And, with the launch of Traffup, they lost a considerable amount of traffic to traffup. All these people got a better way of getting free website traffic. Plus, Facebook has banned Twiends for illegally using its “Likes” Section. This has been the turning point in the history of twiends, which is kinda effecting its profits.

4. Decline Stage: With the current position of Twiends, it would be crazy to say that Twiends is in its decline stage, especially when a large number of people are still using twitter and are interested in increasing their followers. But with the removal of its website and facebook  section, twiends is showing the signs of frustration. And it would not be a surprise if you see a gradual decline in its popularity. The following would be the main reasons for it:

• Emergence of Traffup  as a better, faster and smarter way of increasing website traffic.
• In case if  Traffup ventures into Twitter and Facebook areas, it would be very interesting to see how twiends would be able to hold its position.
• With the advent of much hyped Google Circles, Facebook for sure will get a hit on its face. And thus the craze of Facebook will further decrease.
• A lot of celebrities have given the signs of their exit from twitter. In this case the fan following of twitter would be largely affected, and thus it would affect the growth of Twiends.

The way ahead

With passage of time, every brand or company faces tough time. Some bad managed websites see its decline in a few months or even days from its launch. And some intelligently managed websites like google, facebook etc. stretches its life cycle to a very long time. On the verge of decline every website should chart out a plan and take some drastic steps like:

• Removing their unprofitable sections (like twiends did with its website section).
• Diversifying into different areas.
• Brainstorming some new features, or
• A radical change in their design and functionality.

We don’t know what the future is holding for Twiends. But I sincerely hope it to have something best in store for us as users.