It’s not just relatively low retention rates that Twitter has to deal with. Turns out, according to a Harvard Business School study, that the median number of messages a Twitter user sends—ever—is one.
The researchers found that a small group is sending out most of the tweets on the service. Ten percent of Twitter users account for more than 90 percent of messages. That’s more than on the typical social network or on Wikipedia, where 15 percent account for 90 percent of entries.
The implication, according to the Harvard researchers: Twitter “resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.”
Twitter executives have said they working to keep Tweeters engaged with the service. Last month, a study found that 60 percent of new Tweeters abandon Twitter.com after a month.
Anymore news like this you’d think the moneyboys would stop offering all their geedus to Twitter!
Who among us really has anything to say?
# 1 bobbo said, on June 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
Who among us really has anything to say?
… that is even of remote interest to anyone else …
There, fixed.
/T.
and one user in the 10% is a damn cat door…
Twitter’s best use will be as a direct marketing tool for celebs. It has already pretty much become that. It would surprise me at all if there aren’t folks at PR firms all over LA who’s primary job is to tweet in the name of thier clients.
It allows the celeb to take over the story instead of leaving it to the likes of TMZ.
A story last week on NPR’s Market Place was how VH1 who owns the TV and Video rights to some documentery about some thrash metal band is basing the marketing of the film on giving a couple of thier big names (who happen to be Twitters) a DVD of the film and then standing by and reaping the free PR.
Although I don’t take quite the negative view that GigG appears to, I agree with his statement. Banal as it might be, Kutcher and a few other celebs have shown that they can personally interact with Twitter without the PR machine being involved, and this I think is the greater power of Twitter. And I hope that, in time, people will reject the schticky PR machine for those celebs who actually Tweet themselves.
(Would you rather be the friend of the celeb’s manager who gives you nice managed soundbites, or of the celeb themself, who gives you… well, not.)
For my part, I’m one of those “quit within a month” users. The initial task of finding friends on the service was far too steep, as I knew all of two other twitterers IRL.
I don’t tweet every day. Maybe every week or so. I don’t want to tweet political stuff, so I just tweet about my writing and such.
I think you just twatted. Heh, heh.
Alex, you will never no the difference between the celeb and the PR twitting for the celeb.
That said, I have never twitted or even read a twit. I’m probably the last person with an iPhone, multiple computers and an Internet connection to be able to say that.
But I’ve met celebs, I’ve had drinks with celebs and with very few exceptions I’d rather read what their PR people produce than what they were producing for themselves. Most of them just aren’t that smart or witty if they don’t have a script.
Twitter is stupid. It is the tool of the self absorbed and celebrities. Nobody really cares that you are brushing your teeth now.
#5 Alex, I think smarter clebs and politicians can indeed handle some of their own PR.
However, many politicians have already made fools of themselves (Palin) and many more celebs are certain to do the same….and their PR handlers will be called to fix the damage and will make them stop twitting, twatting, whatever.
I still don’t understand what twitter does or why. Don’t we hate being tracked? Yet some people are playing their life out in public text messages? wtf?
#8 – I disagree that you will never know the difference, precisely *because* most celebs aren’t smart enough to always be on message.
And as to the PR people being more witty, etc. – that’s true. But I don’t think people flock to follow Kutcher because he’s a Whitman or Twain. People want the real, unfiltered mess, not the happy fixed crap that Variety feeds them.
#10 – Absolutely. And they’re the ones who are going to use Twitter to its maximum potential. The less smart celebs/pols will simply end up doing stupid things (which attracts its own audience), and those who leave it up to their PR people will not be as popular (because I don’t think as many people like a canned message.)
all i can think of when hearing about twittering, people who tweet (whit isnt it people who twit??), is the monty python bits with D. P. Gumby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIlKiRPSNGA
MY BRAIN HURTS!!!
Kuthcer is a bad example, Alex. Because he really is kind of witty and not the dumbest guy in Hollywood.
I think the masses will accept the PR produced versions precisely because that is the real version of the celeb at least as far as the masses know.
If you showed the real personality of most celebs to their fans they would, in 9 cases out of 10, stop being fans. In most cases these celebs are actors. The public face they present is just another role.
11,
Twitter is the tool for narcissists. And women. Women love to talk, even if no one is listening.
That being said, the kids these days have no clue how much of themselves they show the world. They’re like the monkey climbing the tree; the higher he goes the more he shows his ass.
Vindication for Sebastian Rupley! He’s been saying this all along.
#14 – I grant that’s certainly a possibility GigG, but I still think fans would prefer the real thing to the PR machine.
18,
So long as the fans are being tweeted, they won’t care. Its the appearance that their celeb cares enough about them to expend 140 characters or less that fills their hearts with joy. Not the content.
You twits, Twitter is doomed, it will implode with spam, it’s a fad that will fade. There will come a point where people get tired of exposing their thoughts for billions to see, probably when they start finding their lives made 100x more public than they ever imagined, and when the amateur paparazzis start showing up at the front curb of every 3rd house on the street, because of stories they catch on Twitter, you twits.