Twitter Tally
Tweety Bird would never believe this.
Ifmedia attention is any indication, Twitter has exploded into an all-outphenomenon. Celebrities, politicians, entrepreneurs, business leadersand everyday users are flocking to the service en masse, generating a frenzy of activity and attention.Everybody is talking about Twitter, but what do the numbers say? Editor's Note: This seems like a good time to let you know you can follow the PIN Payments Blog on Twitter by clicking this line.
eMarketer estimates there were roughly 6 million Twitter users in the US in 2008, or 3.8% of Internet users.
eMarketer projects that the number of Twitter users will jump to 18.1 million in 2010, representing 10.8% of Internet users.
By all measures, Twitter is growing, and quickly.
comScorereported that Twitter.com drew 4 million unique visitors from home,work and college/university locations in February 2009, up from 340,000a year earlier—a 1,086% increase.
Nielsen Online reported 7 million unique visitors to Twitter.com during the month, up even higher—1,381%—from 475,000 the prior year.
The Competefigures were higher for the month charted, and according to its latestfigures, Twitter had over 14 million unique users in March 2009.
comScore also reported a surge in March. After months ofdouble-digit growth, traffic to Twitter.com accelerated 131% to 9.3million visitors for the month.
And the number of Twitter users is considerably greater thanthe number of visitors to Twitter.com, as a result of the multipleaccess points for the service (for example, mobile devices and desktopapps).
What’s driving this phenomenal growth?
“Twitter lets people know what’s going on about things they careabout instantly, as it happens,” Evan Williams, Twitter’s CEO, told The New York Times. “In the best cases, Twitter makes people smarter and faster and more efficient.”
A survey of Twitter users from MarketingProfsbacks Mr. Williams’ views. On a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1 for stronglydisagree and 5 and for strongly agree), the phrase “I find it excitingto learn new things from people” averaged a score of 4.65 and “I valuegetting information in a timely manner” averaged 4.58.
“Above all, people on Twitter are truly motivated by learningnew things and getting information real-time, as it’s developing,” saidAnn Handley of MarketingProfs.
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