It seems to have become an online sensation almost overnight. Fast-growing social networking site Twitter’s USP is, of course, the way it allows you to post messages (‘tweets’) of 140 characters or fewer, which fellow aficionados can see if they choose to ‘follow’ you. It’s been dubbed the Internet’s very own SMS system.
This February it had over seven million unique visitors, compared to 475,000 a year earlier, huge growth!
Everyone’s supposed to be doing it – including high-profile users like Stephen Fry, and Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden, who invited Hollywood star Demi Moore to the show’s final by tweet.
But now fresh research from Harvard Business School suggests that only a minuscule proportion of Twitter fans generate virtually all the content. More than half place just a handful of posts a year.
Researchers, who last month studied the Twitter habits of some 300,000 users, found that that just 10 percent of Twitter account-holders were responsible for generating more than 90 percent of the site’s content.
The median number of lifetime ‘tweets’ per user is only one, the research reveals.
The research throws doubt on how accurately companies can use the micro-blogging site to assess public opinion, although researchers say that Twitter could still be useful in responding to specific customer concerns, and an effective marketing tool, since companies can advertise promotions to their followers via the site.
Established in 2006, Twitter shows no signs of going away just yet. But this new research does throw some interesting light on its limitations.
Some people are already questioning the purpose of Twitter, and this new study will no doubt cause more to do the same.
Source: Reuters. Image: screendump
Add Your Comment Now!
