

74% of Twitter users have 10 tweets or less  - pakafka
http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100310/twitters-wallflowers-get-a-little-less-timid-but-its-still-a-service-for-watchers-not-talkers/

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jasonlbaptiste
I just can't get bullish about Twitter for the long haul with mainstream
adoption. I know I might get flamed for this, but I'm trying to give some
observations:

* Tech inclined, but non-industry friends just don't see the value of Twitter. The word pointless is used almost every time.

* Those that try it leave very fast. That's where the 10 tweets per person seems to be about right.

* The engagement just isn't there. I know someone mentioned the whole 90/10 ratio, but that's different here. Imagine if only 74% of Facebook users posted something or updated their profile. That's really really bad.

* I asked a room filled with 30 college seniors who come from good backgrounds / fairly smart / business students etc if they used Twitter. One person tried it and one person uses it for their job, not personally.

I'm not saying Twitter is horrible or Twitter is going to die. I just don't
see it being the huge monstrosity of a multi multi billion dollar company a
lot of people expect it to be. That's okay. I'd rather see it stick around for
those that do value it, rather than die because it tried to become something
it just can't be.

~~~
potatolicious
The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from
local merchants/organizations.

I follow some restaurants in my city, and it is useful for keeping tabs on
specials and other happenings around me, but it's almost entirely useless for
personal communication - Facebook does it better with more existing adoption.

~~~
eplanit
"The only compelling case for Twitter I've found so far are announcements from
local merchants/organizations."

Where "announcements" == advertisements. Yes, that's the apparent and
generally agreed (long-term) usefulness of Twitter.

~~~
kscaldef
It might be advertising, but it's advertising where:

1) I opt-in, and can opt-out

2) I pick exactly who I want to get advertising from

3) The "advertiser" can get feedback on how many people are following them,
how many new, how many lost, and potentially adjust.

Personally, I'm pretty happy that I can follow my favorite restaurants and
they tell me what today's specials are, or I can follow my neighborhood bar
and they tell me when they change a keg. If that's the future of advertising,
I'm happy to have it.

~~~
eplanit
I'm sure early TV viewers found benefit in advertisements, too. At least some
did, no doubt. The Ad industry itself wants consumers to regard their works as
"information".

They've found a new vehicle in Twitter -- a tap into a new generation of
consumers. They've done it well, for their consumers are actually defensive of
their advertisements by virtue of the fact that the Ad is served up via new
technology. (i.e. Because it's personal it's more legit? welcome?)

They've surely found the sweet spot of technology and their consumers. Genius.

~~~
kscaldef
You've completely ignored my points. I don't care that the ads are served by a
new technology. I care that I have complete control over who I am receiving
communications from and when I view those communications.

------
ThomPete
From the article

"Is it a communications utility a la Facebook or is it a media company?"

IMHO It's neither. It's an asynchronous ecosystem that connect people based on
affinity rather than friendship.

~~~
njharman
Bingo,

Facebook is about friends (and casual games). Twitter is about strangers. Who
you might want as friends or at least have some common interest even if only
temporarily such as both you looking for SXSW after parties.

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apike
If you look at the Y scale of their graph, It should be clear that the middle
mass of tweeters are spammers. The lowest hashmark on their scale is 200,000
tweets.

[http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-
dis...](http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/files/2010/03/twittering-
distribution.png)

200,000 tweets would be roughly 5 tweets every hour since Twitter was created.
There is a mass of such spammers in the 1,000 followers range because 1,000
seems to be the order of magnitude that accounts can get to by semi-automated
following and unfollowing.

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alexk7
26% producer/74% consumer is more than the 10%/90% I expected. Not everyone
has something interesting to say and that's all right. I don't really want
more people tweeting what they have for lunch.

~~~
bugs
26% aren't necessarily producing though it could be under 10% and the others
just tried it for a day or a week and saw no use.

------
dgordon
You'll see the same kind of ratio for almost any forum or website that people
sign up for. I've been on a number of forums on which the median number of
posts is one, and they're pretty lively, so this statistic doesn't mean much
to me.

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bad_user
Not to mention ~ 1000 following, when I can't even follow tweats from ~ 25
people.

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anon-e-moose
Most people just use Facebook to do what they might with a Twitter account. I
would say comments, likes, and above all it being built into something that
they already have is what gets people to actually use it.

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cfpg
Twitter is a newsletter reader.

That's how I use it, I don't have anything to say(and would most likely use my
blog if I had to post something) but I'm following artists/companies to keep
up with their news.

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brianmckenzie
The main reason I signed up for Twitter was to grab my name before anyone else
could, in case Twitter really takes off and becomes crucial for day-to-day
life. For personal branding, in other words.

I would guess that I've sent less than 5 tweets since I've been on there. That
hasn't kept a bunch of people from following me, although I don't know 90% of
my followers and the other 10% are mostly ex-girlfriends and people I knew in
high school.

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dasil003
And how much of that 74% even uses Twitter at all? I can't believe they
completely ignore that aspect of it since it renders the statistic completely
meaningless.

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bkbleikamp
This isn't surprising - what percentage of Wikipedia users actually contribute
to Wikipedia? Probably less than 10%. What percentage of users actually
comment on Hacker News? Probably not very high (I don't know, though).

You don't need all your users to be active to have a useful or viable product.

Facebook is an edge case - they have a huge percentage of active users.

------
kirpekar
I have heard this so many times from my non-tech friends:

"Your friend just took a crap & tweeted about it? Power to you"

"The popularity of twitter is testament to the stupidity of the human race"

I personally never tweet. I only follow popular people to hear what they say,
news sites, local businesses, etc. I don't really know why anyone follows me.

------
NZ_Matt
I'm 19 and from New Zealand. I've never heard anyone my age rave about
twitter. There doesn't seem to be any compelling reason to use it when we
already have facebook. It is hard to understand why you would want to follow
random strangers.

~~~
zaidf
Few years ago, my cousins in India would tell me the same thing about
facebook: _hey we have orkut why would we need something else?_

Fast-forward now, and they are all gung-ho over facebook. Not sure if Twitter
is on the same trajectory but your line of argument("we already have x, why
need y?") is very weak going by history.

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motters
The Pareto principle should apply to Twitter, as it does to many other things.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle>

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winter_blue
I bet less than 10% twitter users tweet at least once a day.

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DannoHung
The problem with Twitter is that they ALWAYS LOG YOU OUT.

ALL THE DAMN TIME!

What the HELL Twitter? I'd tweet a LOT more often if I didn't have to keep
freaking logging in. GEEZ.

~~~
jrockway
Check the "remember me" checkbox when logging in. Otherwise, yeah, your
session cookie is deleted when you close the browser.

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topbanana
Fewer

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tim_lossen
oops, i first read this as "have 10 feet or less" ... yeah, probably even more
than 74% :)

