Comments on: A Typical Twitter User

By: ¿Cómo son los usuarios de Twitter? - elWebmaster.com

¿Cómo son los usuarios de Twitter? - elWebmaster.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:21:51 +0000

[...] Fuente: Web Worker Daily [...]

By: Blogging Elsewhere at Fast Wonder: Online Community Consulting

Blogging Elsewhere at Fast Wonder: Online Community Consulting — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:01:38 +0000

[...] A Typical Twitter User [...]

By: jrep

jrep — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 19:43:23 +0000

Seems to me the study says that Twitter is not a social network at all: the one-post-only folk are the socialites, who drop out. But all the stats sound more like business, or getting-things-done, networks: many of us bemoan, for example, the relative lack of women in open source work, and especially leadership.

By: 2222

2222 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 14:14:51 +0000

People never really ‘got’ rss , I think with it’s nice branding and celebrity endorsement Twitter has taken it’s place for the public

By: Guy Martin

Guy Martin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:07:15 +0000

Dawn,

I’ve found that the most effective way to ‘infect’ potential Twitter users so that they ‘get it’ is to dispense with the web interface almost right away.

Once I show potential users something like Tweetdeck, Seesmic, or the forthcoming Mixero client, all of the sudden, the light bulb goes on, *especially* with the searching/mining part (as you’ve covered in the past).

Still, even with using a more full-featured external client, you have to fight against potential people asking ‘why do I want to know what Dawn is having for dinner?’ :) I actually had someone ask me that when they saw a series of your @Whiffies tweets in Tweetdeck on my screen! However, once I filter on your username and show them the other community related things you post, they seem to get it.

Twitter as a company was very very smart to put engineering effort into the API, because they get the best ‘Tom Sawyerism’ that way. Everyone wants to paint their fences for them!

By: sjc

sjc — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:42:35 +0000

I’m new to twitter, with like 19 followers. However, I think for blogging it is a great source of ideas for posts and a great place to meet others in the field your in. I typically tweet once a day. I’m a big fan of it though, and anyone with a website should be using it.

By: Lorry Schoenly

Lorry Schoenly — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:32:59 +0000

I agree with Dawn. It takes a while to get the right mix of followers and followings. I am still working at it. I consider my part of the conversation to cross-pollenate between the two spheres. Since my specialty is so narrow – correctional nursing – it will take time to cultivate a community. However, the dialog among a diversity of tangential groups has been very fruitful and productive.

By: Dawn Foster

Dawn Foster — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:16:55 +0000

Scott,

I have no data to back this up, but I talk to quite a few people who sign up for Twitter and don’t really get into it, so they stop using it. Then they go back and try again at some point later before they really start to get into it. For some reason, it seems to take some people a few tries before they really start to see the value.

I also think that it is only valuable when you can find the right people to follow. It sometimes takes a while before people find the right mix of content to make it really interesting.

By: Scott Szur

Scott Szur — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:10:19 +0000

While I am not surprised that a minority of Twitter users supply the majority of the tweets, I am surprised that the disparity is so large (i.e. only 10% of prolific Twitter users accounting for over 90% of tweets.) A potentially bigger issue for Twitter is their retention problem. There has been a surge of new people signing up to use the service. But the majority of people tend to lose interest in Twitter relatively quickly and stop tweeting.
I personally love Twitter and I am on it daily. But I am concerned about its viability going forward.