A friend of mine said recently that he was, “wondering what happens to Social Media after the novelty wears off – because I believe we’re just about there.” And though I tried to fight it, I think he is right.

And as an owner of a development firm first, then a social media marketeer, I have for the last six months seen my favorite application born out of the social media/social networking/community dynasty, now transitioning in its maturity into a “platform” of which other incredible web apps are constructed from.

Twitter in itself is fast becoming that evil little word that social media types hate to say – mainstream (sacrebleu!) – as if they themselves have created it and want it still as their own little “secret” for world domination. I am not eluding to any shark-jumping, I just am of the mindset that when you start following big name guys like Lance Armstrong, Jimmy Fallon, Shaq, and even Howard Lindzon you see how universal this is and how abundantly clear that the only barrier for entry is a computer and the Internet.

But, what does separate the men from the boys is…”Twitter: The Platform”. Roll please…

What I mean by this is using Twitter on the web or on your iPhone or sticking some cutesy code on your website or blog for people to follow along is great and will be here for a while to come. This is easy, it’s generic, anyone can do it. And with 3.5 million people coming to Twitter monthly – it ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

But the real genius of Twitter is using it as a platform for entirely separate applications guided by some industry niches and innovative ideas. With the recurring theme of using Twitter as the tool to keep the community involved.

I see brilliant uses of Twitter in the form of several web applications out now. StockTwits.com, from the brilliant mind of Soren Macbeth, is one of those apps you cannot stop seeing the possibilities for growth and spinoffs into other industries. Soren leveraged the power of Twitter, with his minor addiction to the stock market and fostering an unbelievable amount of traders, hedge guys and stock junkees who obsess daily over the market and trading like himself. Soren was able to translate the financial industry, use an existing proven platform for conversation and community, then add his own innovative finishing touches.

This is what I believe the importance of Twitter is at this time.

Yes, I know what some extreme socmed-minded people are going to say, that Twitter can be used to help the poor, promote unity and solve world peace.  Well unless Kim Jong Il (@FearlessLeader) , Valdimir Putin (@KGBBeefcake) and Fidel Castro (@CohibaPimp) all start twittering with @BarackObama soon, I don’t see this as a viable conversational tool for world peace. But, I could be wrong.

StockTwits using Twitter as the conversation piece but unlike most other apps, especially financial ones, it envelopes itself along with other awesome tools; stock charts, feeds, portfolios, etc. Each portfolio stock has an embedded FinViz chart and you can see other charts through Google Finance, Yahoo! Finance and Whale Wisdom.

The links are RSS feeds of that particular portfolio and what is hot or not about it.

It utilizes the Firefox plug-in, so when you use Firefox as your browser of choice on Twitter, the stocks are highlighted and clickable right to the stock portfolio page on StockTwits.com.

But this is even cooler. What StockTwits followers are doing to make the most of the app.

On Twitter Keith Shepherd (@keithshepard) went another step by using a mashup of TwitPic and StockTwits to show his own charts. On his blog a while back he wrote about “Combining StockTwits and TwitPic To Add Charts To Tweets”, he shows how you can do it, too.

All I am trying to point out that I see Twitter as the platform, which is going to launch even more incredible applications down the road, and not just as a social media tool for microblogging.

That’s like saying, Batman was a just a guy in black underwear….

Do YOU know of any other sites using Twitter as a platform? Do you use StockTwits? Let us know!