
Just 16% of U.S. adults use Twitter and only 8% get their news from Twitter - coreymaass
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/11/04/survey-twitter-users-tend-to-be-young-mobile-and-educated/
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coldcode
The problem with twitter is that it's 160 char limit is too short to be useful
without an embedded link. That makes it useful for quick notes and as a
pointer to actual news but not getting news itself. Since twitter restricts
apps from accessing tweets in commercial volume, the usage of tweets to
generate "magazines" full of news that are easier to read doesn't happen.

I use it as a subscription mechanism for my blog in addition to rss. But not
much more than that.

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rtpg
I actually follow a decent amount of journalists, and they comment a lot on
things in a sort of "preview" of what I'll see in tomorrow's paper. For
example, with the Iran negotiations, there was a lot of chatter about people
entering the building, making comments, etc. It's not the news, but it's like
a high-level form of gossip, and pretty real-time.

Plus it's nice to be able to ask a person a question (there's a pretty high
response rate when asking a writer something on twitter).

Interesting side-note though : 160 chars in japanese ends up being pretty big
content-wise, which is probably why a lot of japanese users don't mind using
it as their main social network account.

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interstitial
But 100% of TV networks get their news from Twitter. So, ipso facto, 100% of
US Adults get their news from Twitter.

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arbuge
That's no good for Twitter. That just means the TV networks are the ones who
get to make the advertising revenues instead of Twitter.

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dottrap
How do these numbers compare to television (sincere question)?

My understanding that in the US, news programs get ratings in single digit
percentages. This number is tied to the number of households with televisions
(I'm seeing the number 115 million thrown around.)

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rtpg
8% of 190 million people is still a good chunk of people (especially
considering that twitter is relatively new in the "social networks that are
'in' " category.

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nahname
A sentence is usually not a paragraph on it's own. A news story should be more
than six sentences.

Why not share the actual research instead?

[http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news-
consumers-...](http://www.journalism.org/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers-
young-mobile-and-educated/)

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coreymaass
Thanks for posting that. I just heard the stat on CBS, and thought it would be
interesting to post here to see people's reactions. Do you use Twitter?

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nahname
Everyday. For me, it is useful as an RSS replacement. It helps me stay in
touch with professional contacts and friends. It also gives me access to
restricted/famous people.

