It seems like everybody is Twittering these days. From Oprah Winfrey, to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, media movers and shakers are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon at breakneck speed, not to mention the millions of school kids, rock bands, business consultants and housewives who have recently discovered the joy of Twittering.

But is all this mainstream success actually ruining twitter? Online fads that burn too brightly tend to be short-lived. And all the recent attention being given to Twitter is causing many pundits to believe the site is the “pet rock” of the decade.

And that’s the biggest problem with Twitter: it has reached mainstream saturation so quickly, that it inevitably begins to look like nothing more than a Web 2.0 fad. Meanwhile, diehard Twitterers who have been on the site since its launch are feeling like, once again, the public has “dumbed down” a really cool (if a bit geeky) web experience, and turned it into just another safe, homogenized online business.

But could it be that a lot of the Twitter bashing just sour grapes? With the site signing up new members at an astronomical rate, there is bound to be some jealousy in the industry, and even resentment of Twitter’s meteoric rise in popularity this year. Even FaceBook, MySpace, and the all-mighty YouTube are beginning to feel Twitter’s impact on the Web, as users spend more and more time Twittering, and less on their respective sites. No doubt, many of the biggest players in the social networking industry hope that it turns out to be short-lived fad. But only time will tell.

But the media frenzy around Twitter is undeniably good for the site itself, and many would say, for the Web in general. After all, Twitter provides an easy platform to stay connected with friends, family, business associates, and basically anyone you want/need to stay in touch with.

The remarkable thing is that Twitter is such a simple idea to begin with. A few years ago the concept of the micro-blog was unheard of, but at its core it is an extremely basic concept: provide a simple blogging platform that is tailor-made for shorter entries, and then tie it to a vast social networking infrastructure. Presto! There’s your twitter.

As they say in business, “the simplest ideas are often the best.” But if history is any judge, when a web site becomes too ingrained in pop culture, it has nowhere to go but down. This, of course, is because pop culture is constantly changing, and today’s Twitter can very easily become tomorrow’s AltaVista!

On the other hand, a great idea is still a great idea, no matter what kind of mega-pop culture phenomenon it becomes. Google was also a great idea that quickly caught on with the mainstream — and the flagship search engine shows no signs of letting go of its grip over the online world. Will twitter be the next Google? That’s doubtful; but one thing is for certain: it’s here now, and getting bigger every day. Who knows? Maybe we will all be Twittering 10 or 15 years from now. In the unpredictable Web 2.0 world, you just never know.

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