Twitter’s unique audience exploded over 100 percent in March 2009, meaning it likely has reached an inflection point of some sort. But there are issues: Currently, more than 60 percent of Twitter users fail to return the following month, says David Martin, Nielsen Online VP.That means Twitter’s audience retention rate, the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is about 40 percent.
To put that in perspective, it is roughly the equivalent of turning over 100 percent of the user base every three months. Such a churn rate is unsustainable.
"It is clear that a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site’s growth to about a 10 percent reach figure," says Martin. "A high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite."
There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones, at some point.
When Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high, says Martin. When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/twitter-quitters-post-roadblock-to-long-term-growth/
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