
60% of Twitter Users Quit Within the First Month - jasonlbaptiste
http://mashable.com/2009/04/28/twitter-quitters/
======
nir
The Web has seen its share of hype, but I think Twitter is pushing it to new
levels.

Most people don't really need or even understand Twitter's functionality.
Those who do are getting it from Facebook. But the best part is that the
numbers _actually reflect this_. 6 million users in 3 years of constant hype
is not a high number. (Just to put it in perspective: I once contracted for a
company that produced a shopping toolbar. Nothing viral, no PR to speak of,
nice but not amazing functionality. 3 million downloads in a year.)

Any journalist could have deducted as much just looking at the user count. A
slightly more serious one might actually use it for a while, and see how many
of her followers are "SEO marketers", brands and other spammers. And yet the
puff pieces continue. Personally, I think the best value we're getting from
Twitter is in reminding us how incredibly poor, shiny object driven our media
is, from Oprah all the way to Maureen Dowd.

~~~
tptacek
I think you're nuts. I get a better newsfeed from BNO and CBS' Mark Knoller at
the Capitol than I do from CNN. Show me how to do that on Facebook today.

I also think it's disingenuous to suggest that people don't understand
Twitter's functionality when the point you're actually trying to make is that
you can't see why anyone would want it. But if you make that point, you have
to deal with people coming back at you talking about talking to their
customers on Twitter, promoting niche products on Twitter, arranging ad-hoc
meetups when traveling on Twitter, getting direct feedback from their fans on
Twitter, and it's much easier to pretend like 140 character broadcast messages
are somehow tricky.

I also think it's disingenuous to suggest that Twitter's N x 1MM users are the
product of 3 years of constant hype, when 1.5-2 years of that hype was
confined to the Web 2.0 trade echo chamber. CNN hasn't been hyping Twitter for
3 years.

~~~
nir
Here was a point-by-point rebuttal but I deleted it now since turning this to
a Reddit-like argument is pointless.

In any case, my problem is not with Twitter. I see it as a neat niche app -
maybe you're right and it will be a huge app. Nobody can really know at this
point.

My disappointment is with its coverage. If the NY Times and CNN are this
easily excited over a 6 million user website, what's their advantage over,
say, Scoble? Are we rebooting the Web again? Watching them cover Twitter feels
like watching middle aged parents trying to dress and act like their teenage
children.

~~~
tptacek
I remember feeling the same way about Siamese Dream when all the jocks
suddenly got into the Smashing Pumpkins. It was, looking back, a pretty
excellent album anyways.

~~~
nir
I don't completely agree it's the same thing but I do like this example :)

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TomOfTTB
I’m Twitter’s bigger detractor but this seems dubious to even me. People see
the name Nielsen and think its gold because of their dominance in TV ratings.
But the reality is they put their numbers behind a pay wall so they aren’t
scrutinized by enough people to determine just how accurate they are. Combine
that with the fact that their methodology doesn’t necessarily work at all when
measuring web traffic and you have numbers that mean very little.

With that said, I can see a decent amount of people dropping Twitter soon
after trying it. Twitter’s usefulness isn’t immediately apparent which gives
them a chicken-and-egg problem. In order to see why Twitter works for some
people you have to be active on it and have a group of friends who are also
active on it. But in order to get that you have to see why it’s useful.

------
axod
The facebook stream is just completely winning against twitter. It's usable.
You don't have to worry about 140 characters, you can post vids, pics that
actually show up inline, and comments show up under each post.

For the "keep up with what friends are doing" use case, there's no comparison.

Either twitter will need to adapt - and fast, or I suspect they'll die.

~~~
mustpax
Compared to Twitter, the quality of my Facebook feed is absolutely horrendous.
I don't really want updates from all my Facebook contacts, and removing people
from my feed is just not cutting it. I can be much more selective about my
interests with my Twitter feed, so I actually enjoy most content I receive
from it.

Admittedly, this is more about micro-blogging rather than keeping up with
friends. Twitter can serve both purposes.

~~~
briansmith
It seems like you are saying that Twitter is better because it starts with a
clean slate. If Facebook added a button to start with a clean slate then the
problem you cite would be solved.

~~~
mustpax
I guess so. I don't know if I would take time to subscribe to all the people
that interest me on Facebook though, since I already have, you know, Twitter.

One thing I like about the Facebook feed is that I can narrow it down to just
Links/Videos, which improves the quality of the content somewhat. What I would
really want to do is narrow it down to actual profile updates - status
updates. Important stuff such as contact info changes gets lost in the stream
of "having coffee," "traffic is bad today" style status updates.

------
gustaf
Keeping 40% is a good number

~~~
swombat
Not only that, but I have this sneaky suspicion that even though many users
drop off in the first month, many of those same users end up coming back
later.

Most of the people I know who joined Twitter followed this pattern:

1) create an account, "give Twitter a try"

2) Forget about it for a couple of months

3) Get back to it under renewed pressure, start using it properly, and stay

So the 1-month retention rate may well be irrelevant. What's the 3-6 months
retention rate?

~~~
diN0bot
why do you think this? how many people do you know who did this (hooked on
second or greater try) versus never got hooked?

~~~
swombat
I know about half a dozen people who have done that. Some of them seemed like
hopeless cases, but they still turned it around.

~~~
warfangle
I did the same thing. So now you know one more! :)

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chacha102
As they put in their update, they aren't able to track 3rd party services.
Considering 50% of all Twitter users use Twitter through 3rd party
applications, that is probably a huge chunk.

However, I wouldn't be suprised if Twitter doesn't have a good retention rate.
Especially if you don't go into it with friends, starting out on Twitter is a
little hard, and takes time to build up your stream of information and
relationships with other people.

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mahmud
Naah, it's probably guys like me who are grabbing up names for all their
projects, domains, family and friends, and waiting to see if we ever need
them.

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dant
It's all about network effects. I think the hype is bad for Twitter, it makes
people aware of the service before any of their friends are on there, so they
try it, subscribe to Stephen Fry and Jeff Atwood and then give up.

Me and a few of my friends in the UK .net development world are on there but
we go days between tweets because that's what everyone else is doing. There's
no conversation for me at the moment. At this point I'm just sitting on my
user account and waiting for the network to become worth being a part of.

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vaksel
In reality the # is probably a lot higher. They just come back to see if they
had any activity

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ivankirigin
What about API accesses? <http://twitter.com/jorgeortiz85/statuses/1644880255>

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wheels
As pointed out in the update to the article, this isn't counting those who
switch to using Twitter clients, which as the comment points out, accounts for
about 70% of total tweets.

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diN0bot
"As discussed in the comments, Nielsen is only able to measure return visits
to Twitter.com: how many people set up a desktop application like TweetDeck
(TweetDeck reviews) and continue to Tweet, but never return to Twitter.com? "

on the other hand, having to set up additional software just to make one's
twitter stream sensical, is a large barrier to entry. i bet more people get
turned away than take the next step.

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tlrobinson
Perhaps a better metric would be tweets. Should be easy to scrape everyone's
first and last tweet. Though there's lots of spam accounts now too.

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VinzO
Yea I created an account, logged in, tried to add my first contact. I had the
message that an error occured, retry later. I retried something like 3 times
and I had a message that my account was blocked due to suspicious
activities... Great for a first time... I never connected again.

------
tybris
That's nothing, I quit before I even started using it.

------
ideamonk
But the ones that use TwitterFox seldom quit :)

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numbchuckskills
Answer = Oprah factor

She did a terrible job using / teaching her audience about it, and all the
moms at home give it a shot, don't get any value out of it, and quit.

Not to single out just Oprah, celebrities in general have done a great job
decreasing the value.

~~~
potatolicious
To be fair, most of Oprah's viewership are not tech-savvy enough to "grok"
Twitter in the first place. There's a certain cultural demographic that it
appeals to, and soccer moms generally don't fit this.

~~~
menloparkbum
_most of Oprah's viewership are not tech-savvy enough to "grok" Twitter in the
first place_

I don't buy that.

If anything the uptake I see in Twitter is nearly ALL people nerds would
describe as "not tech-savvy." The nerds I know are all haughty and dismissive
of Twitter. Most of the people I know on Twitter do not work in the tech
industry, nor are they programmers or any other type of self-described "tech
savvy" person.

At this point in history I'm not sure if it still makes sense to brand anyone
as not tech-savvy enough to use something on the internet. Everyone in the
developed world uses the internet all the time. My grandma has used email for
15 years. My mom has an iPhone and is in charge of curating her work's wiki.
My 16 year old cheerleader cousin is on FB, MySpace, five IM networks, sends
4000 text messages a month, etc. The us vs. the not-tech-savvy attitude is a
bit archaic at this point.

