While Twitter is still adding new users at a brisk pace of 6.2 million new accounts per month, only 17% of Twitter’s users (approximately 15 million users) are actually using the social networking site, according to a recent research study by RJ Metrics on Twitter’s users and engagement. The research indicates that although twitter now has 75 million user accounts, a large percent of these accounts are inactive, with about 25% accounts having no followers and 40% of the accounts having never sent a single tweet. If that’s not enough, around 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times.
Research Methods
RJ Metrics used Twitter’s user activity API to download around 2 million tweets from about 50,000 users to conduct this study. Since Twitter uses auto-incrementing ID numbers (1,2,3,4…) for both users and tweets, RJ Metrics was able to find the percentage of users whose user-ids were not associated with any tweets to find out the inactive users. They than went on to use statistical techniques to extrapolate the results to overall Twitter users.
Number of Twitter Users
RJ Metrics used the auto-incrementing feature employed by Twitter, to assign ids to users and tweets, to predict the ratio of used vs unused IDs. The analysis revealed that Twitter is gaining 6.2 million users per month. However, new user registration actually peaked in July 2009, when it hit 7.8 million users – and is on a downward trajectory ever since.
The new user registration chart also indicates that Twitter’s hockey stick moment was reached sometimes at the end of Dec 2008 and beginning of Jan 2009. Twitter continued to grow like a rocket ship till March, 2009 and ever since that time the growth has come to an abrupt halt – as if the space ship has finished all its fuel.
Average Number of Followers
According to the latest study, the average Twitter user has around 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009. In August around 20% of the users had zero followers, which has now increased to roughly 25% users. One possible reason for this increase in users having zero followers could be the large number of users joining twitter, but then going into slumber.
The fact that a large number of users are not using the site after sign up indicates that Twitter lacks the addictiveness that is needed to pull users into using the service on a daily basis.
Number of Tweets
In the analysis of number of tweets, RJ Metrics found out that around 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times – not ten times in a month, ten times in all. The tally was at 75% mark when RJ Metrics conducted their study in August, 2009.
In other words, this tells us that only 17% of twitter accounts are actually active. This has declined significantly from Twitter’s early days when around 50% of the accounts were active. The chart for active users reveals another fact, which is persistent with the Number of Twitter Users data, that the number of active users are steadily declining ever since March-April 2009.
Facebook: Reason for Twitters Gradual Death
RJ Metrics research analysis has stopped short of pinpointing the reasons behind the gradual decline in activity over at Twitter. However, we believe that one of the major reasons for this decline is Facebook’s gradual Twitterfication. After Facebook’s failed attempt to buy Twitter, Facebook has embarked on a policy of “If you cant buy them, destroy them” and has slowly but surely copied the features offered by Twitter.
In Jan, 2009 we predicted that if Facebook could provide a status API, it could mean a death blow to Twitter. Facebook opened up the Status API in Feb 2009, and from March, 2009 onwards Twitter’s gradual decline began – see the charts above for empirical proof.
However, Facebook didn’t stopped at the Status API alone, it went on to launch the status updates, @replies, and has now replicated the retweet functionality from Twitter as well.
While Facebook hasn’t been able to completely eliminate Twitter, we now have statistical results showing that Facebook’s Twitterfication strategy is actually working. Its high time for them to consider an exit strategy, as the door is rapidly closing on them.
Add New Comment
Viewing 10 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Yes, people piled into Twitter hoping for meaningful interactions -- and some of us found them. But we brought our interactive skills with us. Yeah, I hate bots. Yeah, I hate SEO garbage and spam. So I don't follow them. Simple enough.
Whether Twitter has jumped the shark or not, or whether people prefer the more archival nature of Facebook (overrun with apps as it is), the fact that we're hungry for interaction with each other will remain. The question is, do we remember how? And do we feel it's worth the energy?
Thanks for the food for thought. @NextNewNexus
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
As for facebook, I have never been able to get the hang of that either.
have never gone onto a site from twitter or facebook either. I will use Google to find the sites and blogs that I want to read.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
I don't think Facebook has had a hand in it at all, status updates have been around since nearly the beginning. I agree that they have gradually become more Twitter-like in their implementation, but there was never any gap in Facebook functionality that Twitter was going to fill, it is and always has been a microblogging service, it's just taken a while for people to understand it and, inevitably, it doesn't suit everybody. Most blogs lie forlorn, not updated, with no readers, you don't hear people crying about the death of blogging.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
In regards to your last point re blogging, yes many started and then stopped, just like twitter. However I think like blogging, Twitter will find a natural niche or point and now the hypes over it will given a chance to do that.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks