• San Francisco Chronicle , Tuesday, February 2, 2010 3:16 PM

Leading some to question Twitter's fate, a new study by RJMetrics shows that the site's adoption and usage rates may be slowing. The survey -- which involved downloading 2 million tweets from about 50,000 users over several months late last year -- found that by year-end Twitter had just over 75 million user accounts. The monthly rate of new user accounts, meanwhile, peaked in July, and is currently running at around 6.2 million new accounts per month.

Of note, this rate is about 20% below July's peak rate. Similarly, a recent report from HubSpot found that Twitter adoption peaked last March, and has seen its slowed dramatically. HubSpot's research did indicate that the average active user on Twitter is now more engaged than six months ago.

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