The users of Twitter

Twitter has become this year's must have for celebrities, politicians and ordinary members of the public.

This huge growth in popularity is being followed by research which tries to make sense of what is happening.

Sysomos analsysed 11.5 million Twitter accounts. The findings which struck me as interesting are:

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
• 66% of Twitter users are aged 15-24.

At roughly the same twim two Harvard academics, Heil and Piskorski published their research of 300,000 Twitter users. They found:

• Only 10% of users generate 90% of tweets
• Over half of Twitter users communicate less than once every 74 days
• Men have 15% more followers than women
• An average man is almost twice more likely to follow another man than a woman

More recently Pear Analytics sought to identify how people are using Twitter. Analysing 2,000 tweets over a two-week period they identified a typology of tweeters based on six catergories. They found that:

• Pointless Babble - 40.55%
• Conversational - 37.55%
• Pass-along Value - 8.7%
• Self-promotion - 5.85%
• Spam - 3.75%
• News - 3.60%

So what do these three studies tell us? First, that the growth of Twitter use is rapid, which makes me wonder whether it is a passing fad whose star will soon burst, or that it will become a normal part of communication for some people. Second, at present it is the preserve of the young (under 25), but we can assume like the Internet older age groups will adopt it. Third, most people with an account don't actually tweet, or if they do, they do so very infrequently. Fourth, Twitter traffic is dominated by a small elite. Fifth, there is a clear split between how Twitter is being used. For some it is an echo chamber for 'pointless babble' about what they have been doing today, and for others it is a means of engaging in a conversation with others. Twitter is both is a monologic and a dialogic communication channel.

I would be very interested in knowing more about the elite of tweeters. Are they an elite offline as well, such as celebrities, CEOs, politcians and journalists using Twitter as a promotional vehicle, or are they joe public making the most of a new technology to make a name for themselves?