What problem did Twitter solve?

None. It's a fallacy to believe a startup has to invariably solve a problem to go out there; companies like Foursquare or Zynga weren't solving much either.

People like to talk (tweet). People like others to listen to them talk (follow). People like validation (retweets, followers). People have short attention spans (140 chars). People like to be "in the know" (alternative to news source rss feed). People like to feel important (verified).

People will always be people. Twitter isn't a new idea. It just lets people be people.

It started out solving the one-to-many messaging problem (i.e sms for groups; what whatsapp and the kin are going after now)

When you read a newspaper (a thing of the past) you read headlines. If a headline catches your eye, you read the heading/intro, if you're still curious you read the article. Twitter has allowed to converge all the headlines that might interest you into a single real time inbox, not only from newspapers but from whoever or whatever you're interested in. If there is more depth than a simple headline, there will usually be link to an article/video/photo/etc where you can dig into more info about that headline. It's the revolution of "NEWS" and everyone can broadcast or share/refer what they think it's "interesting".

Twitter solved the problem of dead-easy, publish-from-anywhere communication.

Restricting the length of a tweet solved the (perceived?) problem of having to say something meaningful in order to publish on the web. They removed many of the barriers to publishing and by virtue of getting a large user base solved the problem of reaching a large, captive audience for free.

More than anything, they solved the problem of there being no platform in existence that was adequately public, connected, and pointless enough to contain the terse, unsolicited musings of the modern human mind.

1. Blogging was too much effort

2. Not having everyone's mobile number to send SMS messages to the world

3. The need to be heard - even with nothing to say

4. Provides a tenuous form of contact with celebrity.

Ask someone you know how comfortable they are writing/reading an article(blog entry). Then ask them how comfortable they are writing/reading a sentence(Tweet).

Twitter helped deal with the problem of many people being uncomfortable with expressing themselves in longer forms of the written word. It also works for those with short attention spans. Combined with a following mechanism, that has proven very effective.

They blew up because it became the first mainstream way to contact celebrities. They are staying where they are because it's a great service.

Twitter is a buffet restaurant. On the buffet is practically every piece of food that caters to your unique and particular diet.

Look at the data. Joe Blow doesn't have a million followers. Celebrities and public figures do.

@Shaq is not going to blog. He will post insight into his life.

It's a standardized framework for communicating links, ideas, news, and media.

Fan clubs. The desire to have them, the desire to participate easily in them. The ability to create new ones, and to connect with other similar clubs.

Humans gotta do things to each other, or individually they go mad.

Stupid confession: I can't figure out how to use twitter. I have asked. And asked. I can't wrap my brain around it.

So I honestly have no idea what the point is.

boredom mainly and loneliness

I dont use it much

the world was tweatless. they fixed it ;-)