5 ms·

74% of Twitter users have 10 tweets or less

41 points by pakafka 17y ago

bad_user 17y ago
Not to mention ~ 1000 following, when I can't even follow tweats from ~ 25 people.
winter_blue 17y ago
I bet less than 10% twitter users tweet at least once a day.
tim_lossen 17y ago
oops, i first read this as "have 10 feet or less" ... yeah, probably even more than 74% :)
alexk7 17y ago
26% producer/74% consumer is more than the 10%/90% I expected. Not everyone has something interesting to say and that's all right. I don't really want more people tweeting what they have for lunch.
- bugs 17y ago
  26% aren't necessarily producing though it could be under 10% and the others just tried it for a day or a week and saw no use.
ThomPete 17y ago
From the article "Is it a communications utility a la Facebook or is it a media company?" IMHO It's neither. It's an asynchronous ecosystem that connect people based on affinity rather than friendship.
- njharman 17y ago
  Bingo, Facebook is about friends (and casual games). Twitter is about strangers. Who you might want as friends or at least have some common interest even if only temporarily such as both you looking for SXSW after parties.
jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
I just can't get bullish about Twitter for the long haul with mainstream adoption. I know I might get flamed for this, but I'm trying to give some observations: * Tech inclined, but non-industry friends just don't see the value of Twitter. The word pointless is used almost every time. * Those that try it leave very fast. That's where the 10 tweets per person seems to be about right. * The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad. * I asked a room filled with 30 college seniors who come from good backgrounds / fairly smart / business students etc if they used Twitter. One person tried it and one person uses it for their job, not personally. I'm not saying Twitter is horrible or Twitter is going to die. I just don't see it being the huge monstrosity of a multi multi billion dollar company a lot of people expect it to be. That's okay. I'd rather see it stick around for those that do value it, rather than die because it tried to become something it just can't be.
- mechanical_fish 17y ago
  My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter. IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter. Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user. The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms. It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?
anon-e-moose 17y ago
Most people just use Facebook to do what they might with a Twitter account. I would say comments, likes, and above all it being built into something that they already have is what gets people to actually use it.
topbanana 17y ago
Fewer
dgordon 17y ago
You'll see the same kind of ratio for almost any forum or website that people sign up for. I've been on a number of forums on which the median number of posts is one, and they're pretty lively, so this statistic doesn't mean much to me.
motters 17y ago
The Pareto principle should apply to Twitter, as it does to many other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
bkbleikamp 17y ago
This isn't surprising - what percentage of Wikipedia users actually contribute to Wikipedia? Probably less than 10%. What percentage of users actually comment on Hacker News? Probably not very high (I don't know, though). You don't need all your users to be active to have a useful or viable product. Facebook is an edge case - they have a huge percentage of active users.
DannoHung 17y ago
The problem with Twitter is that they ALWAYS LOG YOU OUT. ALL THE DAMN TIME! What the HELL Twitter? I'd tweet a LOT more often if I didn't have to keep freaking logging in. GEEZ.
- fras0132 17y ago
  www.tweetdeck.com
- jrockway 17y ago
  Check the "remember me" checkbox when logging in. Otherwise, yeah, your session cookie is deleted when you close the browser.
dasil003 17y ago
And how much of that 74% even uses Twitter at all? I can't believe they completely ignore that aspect of it since it renders the statistic completely meaningless.
apike 17y ago
If you look at the Y scale of their graph, It should be clear that the middle mass of tweeters are spammers. The lowest hashmark on their scale is 200,000 tweets. http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-distribution.png http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-dis... 200,000 tweets would be roughly 5 tweets every hour since Twitter was created. There is a mass of such spammers in the 1,000 followers range because 1,000 seems to be the order of magnitude that accounts can get to by semi-automated following and unfollowing.
NZ_Matt 17y ago
I'm 19 and from New Zealand. I've never heard anyone my age rave about twitter. There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to use it when we already have facebook. It is hard to understand why you would want to follow random strangers.
- zaidf 17y ago
  Few years ago, my cousins in India would tell me the same thing about facebook: hey we have orkut why would we need something else? Fast-forward now, and they are all gung-ho over facebook. Not sure if Twitter is on the same trajectory but your line of argument("we already have x, why need y?") is very weak going by history.
- kscaldef 17y ago
  Sometimes people who are not your friends have interesting things to say.
kirpekar 17y ago
I have heard this so many times from my non-tech friends: "Your friend just took a crap & tweeted about it? Power to you" "The popularity of twitter is testament to the stupidity of the human race" I personally never tweet. I only follow popular people to hear what they say, news sites, local businesses, etc. I don't really know why anyone follows me.
brianmckenzie 17y ago
The main reason I signed up for Twitter was to grab my name before anyone else could, in case Twitter really takes off and becomes crucial for day-to-day life. For personal branding, in other words. I would guess that I've sent less than 5 tweets since I've been on there. That hasn't kept a bunch of people from following me, although I don't know 90% of my followers and the other 10% are mostly ex-girlfriends and people I knew in high school.
cfpg 17y ago
Twitter is a newsletter reader. That's how I use it, I don't have anything to say(and would most likely use my blog if I had to post something) but I'm following artists/companies to keep up with their news.

41 points by pakafka 17y ago

bad_user 17y ago

Not to mention ~ 1000 following, when I can't even follow tweats from ~ 25 people.

winter_blue 17y ago

I bet less than 10% twitter users tweet at least once a day.

tim_lossen 17y ago

oops, i first read this as "have 10 feet or less" ... yeah, probably even more than 74% :)

alexk7 17y ago

26% producer/74% consumer is more than the 10%/90% I expected. Not everyone has something interesting to say and that's all right. I don't really want more people tweeting what they have for lunch.

bugs 17y ago
26% aren't necessarily producing though it could be under 10% and the others just tried it for a day or a week and saw no use.

ThomPete 17y ago

From the article "Is it a communications utility a la Facebook or is it a media company?" IMHO It's neither. It's an asynchronous ecosystem that connect people based on affinity rather than friendship.

njharman 17y ago
Bingo, Facebook is about friends (and casual games). Twitter is about strangers. Who you might want as friends or at least have some common interest even if only temporarily such as both you looking for SXSW after parties.

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago

I just can't get bullish about Twitter for the long haul with mainstream adoption. I know I might get flamed for this, but I'm trying to give some observations: * Tech inclined, but non-industry friends just don't see the value of Twitter. The word pointless is used almost every time. * Those that try it leave very fast. That's where the 10 tweets per person seems to be about right. * The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad. * I asked a room filled with 30 college seniors who come from good backgrounds / fairly smart / business students etc if they used Twitter. One person tried it and one person uses it for their job, not personally. I'm not saying Twitter is horrible or Twitter is going to die. I just don't see it being the huge monstrosity of a multi multi billion dollar company a lot of people expect it to be. That's okay. I'd rather see it stick around for those that do value it, rather than die because it tried to become something it just can't be.

mechanical_fish 17y ago
My impression is that Facebook stole a lot of the potential Twitter thunder. For communicating among your Facebook friends, Facebook status updates are at least as good as Twitter, maybe better. A lot of my friends are on Facebook, more every day; far fewer are also using Twitter. IMHO Twitter is a tool for following interesting people who aren't close enough to you to be your friend in something like Facebook. But what makes someone interesting on Twitter? Being a celebrity is not it: Most celebrities aren't famous for generating Twitter-type content. They're famous for acting or sprinting or golf or good looks, none of which translates well to Twitter. Being an important company is not it, either, unless you enjoy reading press releases or are a serious power user. The people I follow are hackers, writers, artists, and good linkers. People who are otherwise hard to follow via mass media, but are not close enough to be personal friends. It doesn't surprise me that the audience for that is large but not gargantuan, just as it doesn't surprise me to know that the market for novels is an order of magnitude smaller than the market for sitcoms. It also doesn't surprise me that the Twitter audience skews older. Isn't catering to kids what the rest of the media is for?

anon-e-moose 17y ago

Most people just use Facebook to do what they might with a Twitter account. I would say comments, likes, and above all it being built into something that they already have is what gets people to actually use it.

topbanana 17y ago

Fewer

dgordon 17y ago

You'll see the same kind of ratio for almost any forum or website that people sign up for. I've been on a number of forums on which the median number of posts is one, and they're pretty lively, so this statistic doesn't mean much to me.

motters 17y ago

The Pareto principle should apply to Twitter, as it does to many other things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

bkbleikamp 17y ago

This isn't surprising - what percentage of Wikipedia users actually contribute to Wikipedia? Probably less than 10%. What percentage of users actually comment on Hacker News? Probably not very high (I don't know, though). You don't need all your users to be active to have a useful or viable product. Facebook is an edge case - they have a huge percentage of active users.

DannoHung 17y ago

The problem with Twitter is that they ALWAYS LOG YOU OUT. ALL THE DAMN TIME! What the HELL Twitter? I'd tweet a LOT more often if I didn't have to keep freaking logging in. GEEZ.

fras0132 17y ago
www.tweetdeck.com
jrockway 17y ago
Check the "remember me" checkbox when logging in. Otherwise, yeah, your session cookie is deleted when you close the browser.

dasil003 17y ago

And how much of that 74% even uses Twitter at all? I can't believe they completely ignore that aspect of it since it renders the statistic completely meaningless.

apike 17y ago

If you look at the Y scale of their graph, It should be clear that the middle mass of tweeters are spammers. The lowest hashmark on their scale is 200,000 tweets. http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-distribution.png http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-dis... 200,000 tweets would be roughly 5 tweets every hour since Twitter was created. There is a mass of such spammers in the 1,000 followers range because 1,000 seems to be the order of magnitude that accounts can get to by semi-automated following and unfollowing.

NZ_Matt 17y ago

I'm 19 and from New Zealand. I've never heard anyone my age rave about twitter. There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to use it when we already have facebook. It is hard to understand why you would want to follow random strangers.

zaidf 17y ago
Few years ago, my cousins in India would tell me the same thing about facebook: hey we have orkut why would we need something else? Fast-forward now, and they are all gung-ho over facebook. Not sure if Twitter is on the same trajectory but your line of argument("we already have x, why need y?") is very weak going by history.
kscaldef 17y ago
Sometimes people who are not your friends have interesting things to say.

kirpekar 17y ago

I have heard this so many times from my non-tech friends: "Your friend just took a crap & tweeted about it? Power to you" "The popularity of twitter is testament to the stupidity of the human race" I personally never tweet. I only follow popular people to hear what they say, news sites, local businesses, etc. I don't really know why anyone follows me.

brianmckenzie 17y ago

The main reason I signed up for Twitter was to grab my name before anyone else could, in case Twitter really takes off and becomes crucial for day-to-day life. For personal branding, in other words. I would guess that I've sent less than 5 tweets since I've been on there. That hasn't kept a bunch of people from following me, although I don't know 90% of my followers and the other 10% are mostly ex-girlfriends and people I knew in high school.

cfpg 17y ago

Twitter is a newsletter reader. That's how I use it, I don't have anything to say(and would most likely use my blog if I had to post something) but I'm following artists/companies to keep up with their news.