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Twitter Usage: What's In 8 Percent?

Despite design overhauls, big media partnerships, and more star power than a telethon, Twitter remains a largely niche American pastime.

Indeed, only about 6% of American adults (8% of those online) are Twitter users, according to new research from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project.



What's more, as SFGate.com notes, only about 36% of Twitter users actively use the service, while 41% hardly check their accounts if at all.



Meanwhile, Business Insiders notes that 6% of U.S. adults comes out to fewer than 15 million people, which doesn't jibe with Twitter's claims of about 65 million U.S. users.



"Unless 50 million American teenagers (Pew didn't count them) are on Twitter, there's a huge discrepancy there," Business Insider writes. "The problem is that when Twitter talks about how many users it has, it uses the total number of accounts it has signed up. That means everyone who tried the service and quit, everyone who has signed up for more than one account, and every account run by a bot is included in the total."

Still, if not quite 50 million, couldn't teens make up a reasonable share of Twitter's user base? Not a chance, insists a 16-year-old ReadWriteWeb guest blogger. If you hadn't heard, "Teens don't tweet," the anonymous contributor explains. "Quite simply, why would teenagers bother using Twitter when Facebook exists, and offers so much more?"

"For comparison, it is estimated that approximately 130 million Americans use Facebook, equating to roughly 41 percent of the population," notes VentureBeat.



Regarding Twitter, the Guardian writes: "Given how much of a time sink it is (particularly for those who lack personal discipline with their time), it's not not [sic] for everyone."



"The latest numbers may underscore the fact that Twitter has a lot of growing up to do," writes GigaOm. In its defense, however, "It also shows that in the hands of its users, it's a powerful communications tool."

Read the whole story at Pew Reseach et al »

1 comment about "Twitter Usage: What's In 8 Percent?".
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  1. Matt Merriam from Merriam Associates, December 9, 2010 at 4:51 p.m.

    It surprises me that this is news to anyone. Yes, the Emperor is naked. With no authentication of users and the constant proliferation of bots and bot responses it often appears to be a network talking to itself.

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