Twitter Starts to Get Traction

The issue some observers have had about Twitter is that, compared to other social networking sites, it was not used by many people.

The other issue has been that, even if some older users availed themselves of Twitter, teens did not use Twitter. 

That seems to be changing. 

Some 24 percent of online teens now use Twitter, a figure that is up from 16 percent in 2011 and eight percent in 2009.

In fact, say researches at the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project,  teenagers’ use of Twitter now outpaces that of adults.

About 16 percent of online adults are Twitter users, up slightly from the 12 percent who were using Twitter in 2011.

As with some other highly popular Internet apps, Twitter suggests that early adopters can come from other demographic segments that teens or even college age users. YouTube, blogging sites and LinkedIn provide examples.