Twitter hype punctured by study (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research.

Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found.

Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network.

However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter updated their page less than once every 74 days.

And most people only ever "tweet" once during their lifetime, the researchers found.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089508.stm




ZOMG! Twitter is all hype? Who knew?

[frylock]

1. this is going on my facebook page

[eppur_se_muova]

3. !

[The Straight Story]

2. Wonder what % of posters here provide what % of posts generated

Maybe I will twitter that and see if I get an answer :)

[LoZoccolo]

4. You can do the same thing with DU.

It looks like there's a lot of users but take a random sample
(there's a random number generator at http://random.org ),
look for numbers in the range of user numbers ( the URL is
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=user_profiles&u_id=XXXXX
where "XXXXX" is a user number), and you'll see a
lot of users with not many posts at all.

[tanyev]

5. But, but...that's what's going to bring the kids back to the GOP.

:rofl:

[eppur_se_muova]

6. You are wicked! nt

[NeedleCast]

7. That's pretty much true of most internet services

What percentage of the six figures of DUers do you think are active? I'd guess less than 10%.

[riverdeep]

8. Yes, that's interesting, but what I found far more interesting:

"Research by Nielsen also suggests that many people give the service a try, but rarely or never return.

Earlier this year, the firm found that more than 60% of US Twitter users failed to return the following month."

I remember hearing this last month or so and that's the stat that jumped out at me. Also, the most popular Twit is Ashton Kutcher? Great, that's a selling point.

The next great hype awaits!

[WorseBeforeBetter]

9. I hated Twitter when I first learned about it -- now I'm hooked.

I couldn't care less about Ashton Kutcher or so-and-so and the ham sandwich they had for lunch, but I love the news feed. I follow my local indie paper, The Nation, Krugman, Rails-to-Trails, McClatchy, streetsblog.org, and Josh Marshall, just to name a few.

I still think Facebook is idiotic. I joined because of a "big" high school reunion coming up and was quickly reminded as to why you lose touch with certain people.