Tweeters ask - is anybody out there?
Social networking site Twitter has by most standards seen explosive growth. Classified as a micro-blogging network, Twitter has become one of the buzzwords of the last year. Some studies, however, question whether the users of the service, quaintly referred to as “Tweeters”, are as active as was once thought. These naysayers tell us that just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content — this according to a Harvard study of some 300,000 users.
The concept behind Twitter is quite simple. Users communicates their thoughts, feelings or actions in short bursts of text, up to 140 characters at a time. This communication utilizes text messaging streams, e-mails and cellphone networks to bounce from user to user.
Twitter has, by popular agreement, seen explosive growth. Research from Nielsen Online tells us that visitors to the Twitter site have increased by 1282% to over 7 million in the year ending February 2009. By the summer of 2009 this figure is expected to grow past 10 million. In comparison, the very popular social networking site Facebook has grown by “just” 228% during that same period.
The Harvard study estimates that the median number of lifetime tweets per user is just one, a striking finding. Bill Heil, a graduate from Harvard who carried out this work, thus concludes that Twitter is a broadcast medium rather than a way to conduct an intimate conversation with friends. Further conclusions indicate that men had 15% more followers than women, despite there being more female users, or Tweeters, than male users. Heil further observed that very few people use the service to publish information, and that the vast majority prefer to be passive consumers.
Despite the claims by the service provider that Twitter is a way to communicate and stay connected, it appears that this communication might be one way, or for the majority of people, very brief. The Harvard study also found that more than 60% of Twitter users in the United States did not return to the service the month after they joined up.
Whilst the majority appear to be one-time visitors, at the other end of the spectrum there are some “super users” in the network that can have hundreds of thousands of followers. As an example, actor Ashton Kutcher currently has more than 2 million followers.
Are you still returning to Twitter? Let us know about your Twitter experiences.
Matthew Toren
I certainly buck the trend on Twitter, that is for sure. My chief problem in blogging and making money in other ways online is time. Twitter wastes time, in spades.
It is also a very poor communications tool. It fails frequently, it is improperly architected for the role it has taken on, and it’s virtually useless for getting any specific information to an intended recipient. Actually Titter combines all the _worst_ featurs of a blog, an email system and an instant messaging platform rolled into one.
For those who even know how to use a platform like Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger, Twitter looks like a step back into the dilaup bulletin board days.
I haven’t even logged into my Twitter account for errks now, yet hardly a day goes by I don’t get messages telling me how ’so and so is now following you on Twitter’. Amazing. Whatever could thiose folks be getting out of ‘following’ a person who doesn’t even participate? Talk about lemmings.
If you are already rich and have nothing worthwhile to occupy your time, knock yourself out … but if you are trying to buld a business, make yourself money, provide a service, ask yourself if there isn’t truly a better way to get a return on your time investment … or so Dave opines.
Over and over I hear how powerful a tool Twitter is but I have a hard time seeing it, simple put the majority of people who follow me don’t actually see my messages (low signal to noise ratio?) , nor do I see the majority of messages from people that I actually care to hear from.
I can’t say that I’ve had *financial* success through Twitter, but I have been able to make and sustain contacts by using it. Surprisingly, it has helped to strengthen ties to people in my local community. There are local tweet-ups and I find out info about different networking groups I belong to and their members by using Twitter. I have been able to boost traffic to my blog through Twitter as well.
Twitter is pretty much like the facebook status on steroids. Yes I pretty much imagined that there wouldn’t be as much “tweeting” and sharing of information. Its more so for networking and mere popularity. Yes haha Its amazing how many followers people like Kutcher or Oprah have.
-Randy
I will continue to use Twitter. It is a means for me to gain QUALIFIED and VERIFIED search results. When I want to find out information on a topic I search Twitter, as the people who offer up the site or info have already vetted it, and i do not get stupid results like I would when I use google.
While some of the newer studies show that not as many people are staying with Twitter, it still has enough active users to warrant still using it.
To me it feels like a lot of the really active twitter users sole purpose for being there is to push affiliate products on followers. I enjoy using twitter, but its getting ridiculous.
I still use facebook to exchange information mostly with my friends. I ever read about some advantages of using Twitter. I might try to use Twitter if I find that I really need the advantages of it.
For all the noise, it’s still an open question whether Twitter will become a successful vehicle for reaching customers and stimulating sales. From my perspective, the question is whether Twitter by itself can bring together a community of customers for a small business, or whether that small business has to build that community first. I suspect that the popular assumption is the former, but the practical application might be the latter.
The popularity of twitter has increase a lot lately.