Twitter has grabbed the imagination of a sizeable subset of professional Americans, and it has garnered a huge level of name recognition in the U.S. population, with 87% of respondents to a
recent Arbitron-Edison Research study saying they were aware of the site. But the number of Americans who use Twitter at least once a month remains relatively small, at 17 million, or about 7% of the
total. Separate figures from Nielsen and ComScore suggest the site has been attracting an average 20-22 million unique visitors in the U.S. in the first months of 2010.
This raises the
question of whether Twitter can truly go "mass market" in the same way other sites like Facebook and MySpace have. Looking at the trend lines, the answer would seem to be "no."
Based on
measurements from ComScore and Nielsen, Facebook grew pretty gradually from about 15 million unique visitors in the U.S. in June 2006 to about 20 million in October 2007; it then began growing much
more rapidly, hitting 35 million uniques in December 2007, 55 million by December 2008, and over 100 million in December 2009. In January of this year, Nielsen and ComScore both said Facebook
attracted about 115 million unique visitors in the U.S.
By contrast Twitter's period of rapid growth came early -- but also appears to have ended early. From 500,000 users in January 2008,
it doubled to one million by March 2008, then again to two million by June 2008, four million by December 2008, 9.3 million by March 2009, and 23 million by June 2009. And that's where it stalled: in
the nine months which followed, Twitter has hovered around the 20 million mark in the U.S., while Facebook added about that many new uniques per month. And it's worth remembering that Facebook was
originally limited to members with college email addresses, before opening itself to the great unwashed masses; Twitter has never operated under such a constraint.
So what's blocking
further expansion for Twitter? Edison's vice-president for strategy and marketing, Tom Webster, summed up the problem: "Twitter has yet to articulate its value to mainstream Americans." But I would
reformulate that as a question: does Twitter have value for mainstream Americans?
My guess is, not as much. This is based on a gut feeling which in turn is based on pure, psychological
speculation. But for what it's worth, here it is...
It's easy enough to see the appeal of Facebook. The concept of the self-constructed profile corresponds pretty well to
most people's sense of ego: by selectively presenting information, you can craft a flattering, consistent self-portrait to present to other people. While tweets are also selectively created and
presented to individual advantage, each tweet and even a whole history of tweets is less about presenting a complete identity -- indeed, it's less of a "profile" and more of an "account," meaning a
narrative of yourself encountering, interacting, becoming.
It's worth noting that the Arbitron-Edison study found 70% of Twitter users frequently update their status, versus 55% of users
for other social networks. At the same time, Twitter's progress resembles the first wave of blogs a few years ago: millions of people signed up, but most of these accounts soon lapse or go dormant
because (I would venture) they discovered they don't have anything they feel is worth posting on a day-to-day basis -- let alone moment to moment.
Again this is pure speculation, but I
believe Twitter's approach to self-expression runs counter to most of the population's dominant self-image, which strives for the appearance of consistency and stability over time. True, Facebook
offers users the option of minute-by-minute updates, but these are anchored in a profile which purports to reflect a core identity, covering basic building blocks like gender, age, job, likes and
dislikes, etc. This is a better medium for self-expression for people who aren't pursuing dynamic, tumultuous lives filled with coups and setbacks and revelations and windfalls and intrigues and
endless networking -- that is, the majority of the American population (by the same token, this may also explain why Twitter is less popular with adolescents, who are striving to construct consistent
identities amidst volatile social lives).