This has been my feeling about Twitter for years. There's plenty of value in news, especially real-time news, that Twitter isn't exploiting. I honestly believe that for Twitter to survive, it needs to make news and real-time discussion of news and events its single biggest priority.

I don't say that lightly either. I've invested in Twitter in more ways that one. I've got shares in Twitter, but that's a tiny part of what I've invested in Twitter: I did a PhD on real-time detection and tracking of breaking news on social media (Twitter), and started a company that uses Twitter to detect breaking news [1] before it it hits mainstream media.

[1] http://scoopanalytics.com