It's still kind of a guessing game as to the motivations behind it, but Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey is out, and Evan Williams, the co-founder of the addictive microblogging service, has moved back to CEO from chairman.

Suspects in the shakeup include:

1. The generally shitty economy, where companies are making moves the same way investors are with the stock market – because they're scared and figure they had best "do something";
2. FriendFeed has been slowly peeling away Twitter users;
3. The persistent appearance of the FailWhale;
4. The persistent NON-appearance of a business model.

On the Twitter blog, Williams says:

We're entering a new phase now and there are new kinds of challenges ahead. Healthy companies acknowledge the need for change even during the best of times. As Twitter grows both internally and externally, we took a good look at our path forward and saw the need for a focused approach from a single leader.

Single leader, eh? Focused approach. Even during the best of times (which means that these have clearly not been those). Hmm.

…and then, as if from afar, we hear the echoes of shouting matches in the executive suites and the sounds of many Oreos being hurled at high velocities, shattering on the smeared whiteboards…

I like Twitter. I'm using it more & more to keep track of all the cool stuff my friends & contacts are dabbling in on the web.  Hope they can figure out a way to extract the $$ from the traffic stream.

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