It was imho a mistake for the music industry to shut down Napster. Having it all in one place had a ton of value that could not be replaced with a dozen incompatible music sharing systems. Yet they did shut it down.

Same with Twitter. Having one central news system has a ton of value, a lot more than a dozen incompatible news systems. Yet I'm afraid we're just going to let it fade away, and it will be replaced with who-knows-what.

News is in enough trouble to have a central place like Twitter not thrive.

I think the blame belongs to management who has been very confused about what Twitter is. But the price will be paid by everyone who depends on the free flow of ideas and info.