
42% of US Internet Users Have a Facebook Account. For Twitter, It’s 16% - nachopg
http://diegobasch.com/42-of-us-internet-users-have-a-facebook-account-for-twitter-its-16
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icefox
I wonder how many people bounce from the twitter signup page. Every
combination of my name is already taken on twitter and every few months I
would go to sign up, but can't find a name that isn't taken. The impression
they give you is that the name is very important and you can only pick it
once. I also barely ever use facebook, but as I can just use my email I signed
up long ago.

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diego
Does Twitter suggest an alternative username? Even if they do, the problem
with Twitter growth is that nobody will follow a new user unless they know you
in real life. I have the impression that for new users it's mostly s feed
reader with ads and Foursquare checkins.

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mhurron
> I have the impression that for new users it's mostly s feed reader with ads
> and Foursquare checkins

There's another way to use it? Seriously, I don't get how to use Twitter. If I
follow someone, how do I comment on what they said? Does everyone see that?
What exactly is Twitter trying to do? I have never 'got' it.

It's looks to me like an IM service crossed with RSS, except I can't figure
out how to do any messaging.

(Not that this is really a problem, I have nothing to say and am not social,
but it's irritating not understanding something.)

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jmathai
The rules...

1\. Every tweet on public profiles are ... public. Anyone can read them but
not all your followers see all your tweets (more later).

2\. If your tweet starts with an @mention (as in, the first character of the
tweet) then only the user you @mention will see the tweet in their feed (as
well as anyone else you @mention in the tweet). It does not display on your
followers feeds. That is, unless, you both have mutual followers.

It's a hack and many people don't understand it.

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TomGullen
747 responses. Not statistically significant at all. Extrapolating anything
from these results could be very misleading obviously.

~~~
lliiffee
Well, the confidence intervals are right there on the charts, and look pretty
damn significant to me...

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rm999
Facebook reported in their SEC filing that they had 170M active US accounts,
about 55 accounts for every 100 Americans. Interesting gap, especially because
this survey only looks at US internet users and doesn't ask about active.

I wonder if this is due to multiple accounts per person, bad facebook
reporting, or bad survey results.

~~~
bslatkin
Most people I know have a FB account for their dog. Is it just me?

~~~
sharkweek
I have a couple accounts -- one for work, one for friends, etc -- I know they
have a way of breaking up who sees what on one account now, but I created
these accounts a while before that product released

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padobson
Didn't know about the polling app that Google has. That's great.

Seems to me like Twitter still has a lot of opportunity for growth in the US,
if these numbers are to be believed.

~~~
stephengillie
Just because many people are not using something, it doesn't mean demand for
that something is high. Often, it's the other way around - if many people are
not using something, it's usually due to low demand (at this price).

What price? Time, effort, attention, opportunity costs, etc.

~~~
diego
I think it's barrier to entry. It must be very frustrating to join Twitter
today, see people with thousands of followers and not having any.

Most non-famous people I know who joined Twitter recently follow 50-100 people
and have a handful of followers (who know them in real life). They get bored
quickly and stop using it.

~~~
stephengillie
But those people still have an account...the article is about people who
haven't even tried Twitter.

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joshuahedlund
Your initial takeaway might simply be "wow, a lot less people user Twitter
than Facebook." However, I remember seeing stats a year or two ago suggesting
that 50% of US users had Facebook and less than 10% had Twitter. If both sets
of numbers are accurately comparable (and they may not be), that would suggest
that Facebook may be on a slow decline while Twitter is still growing.

~~~
diego
I don't think old stats from other sources are comparable. In order to
evaluate changes I would only compare my results against the exact same
question asked with the same tool at a different point in time.

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hans
twitter is where you find people you want to know, facebook is where you find
people you used to know ...

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Splines
For me it's twitter is where I find people I don't know, and facebook is where
I find people I do know.

Twitter is useful for me as an aggregator for gathering twitter posts by
people I'm interested in. All of my family members who do use twitter also
have the FB<\-->Twitter thing hooked up so I'm not missing anything from them
by ignoring twitter.

Personally, I find very little value in twitter. Maybe it's because I'm in the
wrong demographic or my social circle doesn't use it, I don't know. I _could_
imagine a world where we posted everything through twitter, but in reality
almost nobody I know personally actually uses twitter.

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Tipzntrix
The numbers feel so very low, but that's a good reminder of how insulated a
developer can get from their users.

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niggler
What does "Have a Facebook Account" mean in terms of activity? Maybe the
question should also have asked about usage ...

~~~
diego
I wouldn't have received significant numbers about usage. In surveys you don't
want to conflate questions, and these questions are asked independently to
different people. It's hard to formulate a question about usage of Facebook
for the general internet population and get a significant number of useful
responses.

Edit: I learned that the tool lets you ask Screener questions that qualify
people to answer subsequent questions. I'll try this with a future survey.

