Twitter Stats Still a Puzzle

Twitter continues to be a bit of a puzzle, for reasons beyond its search for a viable business model. It has enthusiastic users, but also high apparent levels of abandonment. And some studies might lead to the conclusion that Twitter growth is slowing sharply, while other social sites such as Facebook might be accelerating.

Data from hitwise, for examples, shows a peak in Twitter in July 2009, with declines since then. The caveat is that many Twitter users appear to use third party sites to access the service, so the actual Twitter.com visits do not fully capture actual Twitter use.

The hitwise data also might suggest that user engagement with Facebook, a larger and more-established social networking site, is growing much faster than Twitter seems to be growing.

One fact seems clear enough, though, and that is the increased amount of mobile use of the social tool. Although 60 percent of Twitter users say they only use their computers to access the service, about 40 percent say they do so using their mobiles, according to a study of Twitter use during August 2009, Crowd Science.

Crowd Science reports that in August 2009, although only 27 percent of Twitter users posted daily, 46 percent checked for updates every day.

9% of SMBs Use Twitter for Marketing

About nine percent of small and medium-sized businesses currently use Twitter to market their businesses, say researchers at BIA/Kelsey.  In addition, 32 percent of SMBs indicated they plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social site such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace.

Furthermore, 39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites, and 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.

"Social media is clearly gaining traction among SMB advertisers," says Steve Marshall, director of research and consulting, BIA/Kelsey.

You might not be surprised if any study suggests Twitter is used disproportionately by younger people. What the BIA/Kelsey study suggests it also is used by "younger businesses."

About 16 percent of SMBs in business three years or less say they use Twitter for marketing or promotion. About 11 percent of SMBs in business four to six years say they use Twitter for such purposes.

Some six percent of SMBs in business seven to 10 years say they use Twitter for some form of marketing while just two percent of firms in business for 11 or more years say they do so.

Social Media, Networking Now 17% of Total Internet Use

Social networking and blogging sites accounted for 17 percent (about one in every six minutes) of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009, nearly three times as much as in 2008, according to the Nielsen Company.

“This growth suggests a wholesale change in the way the Internet is used,” says Jon Gibs, Nielsen VP. “While video and text content remain central to the Web experience, the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth.”

The popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Classmates.com more than quadrupled from 2005 to 2009 as well. In September 2009, Facebook had 90 million U.S. users and 300 million users worldwide. Also, those users increased the amount of time spent on social sites 83 percent from 2008 to 2009, Nielsen says.

As always is the case, marketing and advertising efforts "follow people."  U.S. advertisers spent an estimated $1.4 billion to place ads on social networking sites in 2008 and advertising expenditures are predicted to rise to $2.6 billion by 2012.

More specificially, advertisers in some verticals made huge new commitments to social media as an advertising medium. The entertainment vertical, for example, increased its spending 812 percent year over year. The travel industry increased its spending 364 percent, year over year.

To be sure, aggregate social site advertising remains a small percentage of overall ad spending. But rapid growth is the story.

Mobile Twitter Passes ESPN, Facebook, and Google

Subscribers to paid community Predicto are different from users of the free mobile Twitter community, says Nielsen Mobile. Twitter has a dominant presence among young and male oriented audiences while Predicto attracts a more mainstream following with a broader penetration, particularly with the female and older demographics.

Twitter is the leading free mobile community, and Predicto is the largest paid mobile community, Nielsen says.

In the fourth quarter of 2008, Twitter amassed approximately 812,000 unique text messaging users, while Predicto Mobile interacted with over 2,303,000 unique users, according to Nielsen Mobile.

Some other key differences in the user breakdown of the two leading mobile communities include 57/43 percent male/female ratio for Twitter versus 45/55 percent for Predicto.

Some 49 percent of Twitter users are in the 35-plus age group versus 68 percent with Predicto. About16 percent of Twitter users earn $100,000 or more compared to 20 percent for Predicto.

During the fourth quarter of 2008, Twitter overtook other free mobile services including ESPN, Facebook, and Google. At the same time, Predicto remains the undisputed leader in the premium mobile space, further distancing itself from NBC in second place, Nielsen Mobile says.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/04/prweb2367764.htm

Twitter Crosses the Chasm

There's a difference between early adopters and mass markets. That being the case, Twitter is crossing an adoption chasm.  Early adopters will look around for the next new thing, because it won't be so much fun now that "everybody" is discovering it.

But what also is likely to occur is that Twitter's usefulness now will grow, as the reason most people use tools is that they are useful. Twitter is now about to find its place as something so useful most people will find they want to use it.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=135899

Windstream is Using Twitter for Customer Support

Windstream now is using Twitter to communicate with customer having service issues. "Sorry for the trouble you're experiencing. you can dm or email me and I can check on that for you," Windstream tweets back to a customer.

http://twitter.com/windstream

Twitter Usage Explodes in March

The number of visitors to Twitter.com jumped 131 percent in March to 9.3 million visitors, up from five million in February.

We call that an inflection point!

Kraft Foods Tweets

Kraft Foods is using Twitter to spread word about where its Oscar Mayer Wienermobile drivers will be next. Kraft also launched the "DiGiorno Crispy Flatbread Pizza" by delivering pizza to "tweet-ups," or in-person, social-media gatherings.

Twitter Adoption Surprises: Business Users Key

Twitter already seems to have been embraced as a business tool, new user data from comScore suggests.

You would expect the highest Twitter adoption by the youngest users. But that does not seem to be the case. Instead, older age cohorts are heavier users.

Analysts at comScore think business users explain the pattern. For whatever reason, business users seem to be acting as though Twitter and other micro-blogging tool have immediate business value.

Enterprise Twitter is Coming, Gartner Says

Analysts at Gartner predict that micro-blogging tools such as Twitter will be widely available in enterprise versions, and will be used in four ways.

Firms will use Twitter as a marketing or public relations channel, using them as part of wider corporate communications strategies such as corporate blogs.

Firms will tweet about corporate accomplishments, provide links to press releases or promotional Web sites, and respond to other tweets about the brand. Inevitably, some firms will "overreach" and publish uninteresting or obviously self-serving tweets.

Employees also will use Twitter or other micro-blogging applications to enhance and extend their personal reputations, thereby enhancing the company's reputation, Gartner says. Employees will enhance their personal reputations by attracting followers who go on to read their blogs.

As people enhance their personal brands, some of this inevitably rubs off on their employers, says Gartner.

Employees use the platform to communicate about what they are doing, projects they are working on and ideas that occur to them, though Gartner does not recommend this, for security reasons.

Inbound signaling also will be a value for firms, which will find micro-blogging posts a rich source of information about what customers, competitors and others are saying about a company.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=920813

Google Trying to Buy Twitter?

Like it or not, Google seems to be the most-logical buyer. One can argue that Google could write an app that replicates Twitter.

But that's only part of the value Twitter, as opposed to any other micro-blogging and real-time search app anybody might produce.

Twitter has gone viral. It has mindshare. People like it and use it.  Sometimes that trumps every other consideration.

A sale to Google alleviates the need to  "find a business model." Google already has one.

And if one assumes Twitter always has been an acquisition candidate (for most firms the "going public" exit does not presently exist), then Google simply is the most-logical buyer. The value Twitter provides is congruent with the value other Google tools provide.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/02/sources-google-in-late-stage-talks-to-buy-twitter/

Business Model Juxtaposition

There are multiple reports from Twitter users on T-Mobile networks that Twitter streams are being interrupted. Separately, photographer Lane Hartwell has taken 5,000 images formerly available on Flickr out of public view. What's the resemblence?

Hartwell objects to images being used on the Web without credit or compensation. "I don't want people just taking my stuff and saying, 'We're going to redistribute this to the masses," she says. She wants to protect her business model, in other words.

Assuming T-Mobile actually is blocking Twitter posts, one would assume there is a similar motivation: to protect the business model.

"It is stealing," Hartwell says of the unauthorized use of her photo in a YouTube video. "I'm not a charity. This is my living."

Likewise, T-Mobile seems to be taking the position that its "short code" service requires a commercial relationship with T-Mobile.

“Twitter is not an authorized third-party service provider, and some services are not available on third-party networks or while roaming," T-Mobile is reported to have replied to a complaint about the apparent Twitter blocking.

"We may impose credit, usage, or other limits to service, cancel or suspend service, or block certain types of calls, messages, or sessions (such as international, 900, or 976 calls) at our discretion,” T-Mobile reportedly has said.

The point is that use of some resources occasionally is a direct assault on some individual's, or some enterprises's, business model, and those entities sometimes take steps to protect their business models.

The observation is that as all content, communications and information moves to IP delivery, these sorts of disputes are bound to multiply.

Build For Your Kids, Not Your Father

A recent survey by CIO Insight suggests chief information officers use (or think they ought to say they use) Internet video, wikis, blogs, really simple syndication, podcasts and social networking. Twitter and Second Life don't get nearly the same levels of use.