Last Thursday was a milestone day. For the first time since I’ve started using Twitter, the number of Twitter followers exceeded the number of people who are subscribed to my blog.

What’s amazing about that is how quickly Twitter useage has caught up with and then surpassed blogging. I’ve been blogging for 4 years now. I’ve only been on Twitter for about 18 months. Most of the growth on Twitter has happened within just the last 3 months.

The big question is why? Why is Twitter growing so rapidly? Here are a few theories I have:

• Twitter is easier to scan. Less is more. People gravitate to shorter messages.
• Twitter is more social. It’s easier to engage the crowd around a brief shot of wisdom or a story or a question.
• Twitter is more viral. It’s easy to grab an insight and share it with friends.
• Twitter is more intuitive. To follow someone, I just click “follow.” Blogs still require a bit of an understanding of RSS feeds.

I love to blog because I enjoy writing. Honestly, though, I’d rather Twitter. Part of the reason is that it’s more of a natural flow of what I’m experiencing, learning and processing. Part of the reason I prefer it is because the haters haven’t figured it out yet. People are friendlier and less divisive on Twitter than they are with my blog. I’m not sure why, but that’s currently the case.

What are your thoughts? Why do you think Twitter is growing so much faster than blogging?