
Twitter is Growing Like Crazy: Up 422% in 12 Months  - nickb
http://mashable.com/2008/09/16/twitter-traffic-growth/
======
dwwatk01
I hadn't used my twitter account in months and just this morning got
notification that lucille166 was following me. Is lucille166 just another of
my enamored female fans, you ask. Nope, a porn bot. I wonder how much of the
increase can be attributed to the influx of spam/porn bots to this previously
(I'm assuming) pristine online landscape.

~~~
webwright
That growth references traffic, I believe. But by many other accounts they are
growing rapidly. I don't think spam/porn is a HUGE problem yet, tho I've seen
more following me (@webwright) lately.

I've also heard that their API traffic is 20-30x their web traffic, so when
you see their web graphs, that's worth pondering.

~~~
axod
The problem IMHO will be the fact that it's _reasonably_ easy to make money
from their web traffic. Making money from API traffic seems downright
impossible to me.

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h34t
For me, Twitter shows potential of contributing to the "third places" of
online life. The informal coffee shop where you're free to overhear
conversations and join in when you want... but just as free to keep reading
your book. No harm in sharing what's on your mind, no expectation to reply to
what other people say. It helps that right now, it has a self-selected group
of people who are pretty open-minded and have something interesting to say
(but the narrowness of this self-selection will grow weaker with popularity).

I just started using it... I'd like it a lot more if Twitterific didn't keep
automatically popping itself into the foreground with another "Twitter Error".
Incessantly drives me nuts.

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raghus
Several CNN anchors now have Twitter accounts and encourage users to ping them
with questions or info. Once the big guys like Larry King or Wolf Blitzer
start promoting their Twitter streams, Twitter growth will be explosive.

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run4yourlives
How does twitter make money, exactly? (I'm dead serious, I don't know)

~~~
babul
With a big enough user-base, they'll find a way. Occasional contextual adverts
added to your timeline seems the obvious start.

~~~
run4yourlives
_they'll find a way_

That wouldn't exactly be comforting if it was my money on the table.

~~~
tom_rath
Bah! This is The New Economy. You just don't "Get It".

~~~
run4yourlives
Funny, I think I've heard that one before.

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ilamont
422% growth in traffic is not 422% growth in registrations. There is a solid
core of early adopters, but getting mainstream society to start Twittering --
especially when there are similar services offered by more popular platforms,
such as Facebook -- will be a challenge.

~~~
callmeed
I think it's starting to happen.

I was watching CNN this morning and they did a brief spot promoting one of
their twitter feeds. Newspapers are using them too.

When the media and entertainment people start using it, I think more
mainstreamers will follow.

~~~
ilamont
But MSM seldom get it right. Remember the LA Times wikitorial? Or Wired's
Second Life bureau? When's the last time you listened to a podcast produced by
your local newspaper, or used the NYT's Blogrunner service? The media is
desperate to "get" the Internet, but many times they simply end up jumping on
the latest bandwagon, which fades after a year or two.

~~~
callmeed
But the Rocky Mountain News has it figured out!
[http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5790930&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5790930&page=1)
/sarcasm

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wastedbrains
I am on twitter and use it a bit because I have found it an easier way to get
the attention of some people in the Ruby community.

Anyways, I still feel like I don't really get Twitter. I read the NYT article,
and i understand that many people don't subscribe to blog feeds, but I don't
really get the point.

The only time I find it really useful is that it forms an impromptu chat room
at any event by following the event name. Such as when I am at conferences you
can view everyone's comments on the current speaker.

Anyone able to make me 'get it'?

~~~
Herring
Find a guy who cares about it, preferably in real life eg a sibling you rarely
see. You eventually get addicted to the constant updates.

oh and get a client - i like twhirl & twitterfox

~~~
wastedbrains
I mostly use it through twitterrific, when I have some down time and my phone
is handy.

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thomasmallen
How interested would users be in a $0.10/message Twitter clone with (however
many nines) guaranteed uptime? Twitter should limit the number of messages a
regular user can send (over a given period, possibly) and charge a nominal
premium fee or rate for the heaviest users. It's an obvious business model,
and everybody wins (except for the heavy users who expect the service to be
free of charge, who are thus kinda cheap).

~~~
iigs
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=300541>

_everybody wins [...]except for the heavy users_

That's a bad alignment to have if you want to make money. You especially want
your biggest users to win. ISP bandwidth caps are a textbook example of how
ISPs are struggling with this issue as we speak.

~~~
thomasmallen
Right but downloading a DVD is definitely more demanding on any network than
routing text messages and micro-blog posts. The revenue would make the product
far more compelling for every-day use because there would be a guarantee of
reliability, funded by subscription fees or rates. But infrequent users could
use it for free (cap free messaging), and see ads.

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furiouslol
Why is it that laymen don't mind writing commands like @john message?

I thought people would prefer it if Twitter just add a To: textfield.

~~~
thwarted
Metadata makes it too complex, it seems.

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volida
looking at the stats I find more interesting the growth of MyYearbook in terms
of time spent.

