Watch out, Facebook.
Twitter is setting its sights on you and your huge lead in the social networking business.
Speaking on Monday at the at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Williams said hitting the 1 billion user mark is inevitable for Twitter.
Meanwhile, social networking rival Facebook has better odds of reaching that goal in the not-so-distant future.
In July, Facebook announced that it had passed the half billion user milestone.
Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research, said Williams has set a lofty goal for Twitter, but that the firm does have a chance to meet it.
"A billion does seem a bit aggressive," said Kerravala. "But I do think, over time, social networking will overtake email as the most popular communication tool. In that light, 1 billion isn't out of reach. Younger people will choose Twitter and Facebook over e-mail."
E-mail, according to Kerravala, is so ... well, yesterday, while Twitter is more like a modern, digital firehose.
"Over the next five years, as high school kids go to college and college kids enter the workforce, we'll see a rapid shift away from "old people" communication tools like e-mail and the phone," he added. "Twitter allows you to reach out to thousands of people at once."
Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin , or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com .
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This story, "Twitter Aiming High at 1 Billion Users" was originally published by Computerworld.