
10% Of Twitter Users Account For 90% Of Twitter Activity - mjfern
http://www.businessinsider.com/10-of-twitter-users-account-for-90-of-twitter-activity-2009-6
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csbartus
At the beginning was Pareto with a 80%-20% distribution. Today we are living
the 90%-10% era moving towards perhaps the perfect asymmetry 99%-1%.

(According to Stanislaw Lem) Asymmetry is a result of deconstructing
“archaeological” power structures as we see today Twitter does with the
mainstream media, Napster did with the music industry.

If I were a VC I would bet on two types of startups:

\- dealing with adding structure to the unstructured (like Google Waves)

\- forcing asymmetry on any market.

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eru
TV is actually much more asymmetrical than most online forms communication.

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csbartus
sorry, don't get the analogy

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eru
I was trying to say that asymmetry in communication is not a new phenomena and
might already be descending.

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csbartus
No doubt. TV is a monopoly power structure influencing people's life. We can
say 99% of manipulation was coming from the classic media structures like TV,
newspapers, Hollywood movies.

And yes, it is already descending due to internet.

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friedbaloney
I think Guy Kawasaki accounts for about 45% of twitter activity.

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growt
You see this numbers quite often (p.e. regarding digg). I think thats just the
way things (people) are. 10% will say something the other 90% will listen.
Wenn you start something involving user interaction/communication you should
keep it in mind.

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swombat
Totally agree. The same is true, for example, in viral growth. A small number
of users will be the source of most of the invitations going out, as I
mentioned here: [http://danieltenner.com/posts/0009-how-to-make-your-
applicat...](http://danieltenner.com/posts/0009-how-to-make-your-application-
viral.html)

That's just a natural state of things, rather than something to be fought
against.

One interesting question is, why doesn't this apply to email or the telephone?
Or does it apply to those media too?

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growt
My guess is that it applies to telephone conferences and emails with more than
one recipient.

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physcab
"This implies that Twitter's resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many
publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network."

Well, there ya go. There's the business plan. It's just a new way to advertise
products. Specific cases like Dell solidify this point as well.

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pierrefar
That's one heck of a long tail! It sure puts into perspective the interesting
stats from @scobleizer: [http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/50e673d8/some-stats-
from-tw...](http://friendfeed.com/scobleizer/50e673d8/some-stats-from-twitter-
conference-compared-to)

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vyrotek
Not surprising, I was an active user for a month or two when I first signed up
but I quickly lost interest. I haven't posted or read anything from twitter
for months now and I dont miss it.

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steve_mobs
i think that is what a lot of normal users experience on twitter.

Social network contribution by normal people is based on you broadcasting or
publishing content about yourself and getting a quick response. for example,
with facebook you can post pictures of yourself and get a response from your
friends.Which people get addicted to.This is basically called the celebrity
affect, where you feel like a celebrity among your peer group.

But on twitter if you are not some sort of celebrity or well known brand you
will not get any followers or responses. Since no one sees why you are special
or why your social content is interesting.

