Swarm of Rivals Seeking Share of Social Media Pie

Twitter, poised to make its splashy entrance on Wall Street, has helped define modern social networking. But while seeking to establish itself as an Internet powerhouse, it must also prove it can fend off a rising threat from a younger generation of nimble social outlets that offer clever new ways for people to connect and share content.

Among these up-and-comers are Snapchat, WhatsApp, Line, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Kakao and Reddit. Each has a different take on what social networking should look like — inventive ways of private messaging and creating content with a rich infusion of images and videos. These contenders, some from overseas, are attracting millions of followers, some at a greater rate than Twitter, which has been relatively slow to adapt to these newer forms of communication. And most of these services have something that is harder to pinpoint and that money can’t buy — an element of cool, an intangible factor that makes them more appealing than their predecessors.