Most Twitterers are Quitters
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| Wed, 04-29-2009 - 2:28pm |
Have you tried Twitter?
http://twitter.com/
I'm one of the quitters because I found it boring. I don't want to be "in the know" about anyone or anything all the time. I heard so much about it had to check it out. Wont say I was disappointed but wondered what all the hype was about.
Article at link...
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/04/29/most-twitterers-are-quitters/
Despite the dramatic growth of Twitter of late (and the incessant media obsession with the newest celebrity tweetsters), users who sign up for the microblogging service don’t always come back.
A Nielsen survey reports that more than 60% of users who sign up for Twitter don’t return to the site the following month. So while Twitter’s traffic has catapulted to 6 million unique viewers each month, only 40% of new users actually stay to play.
“Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months,†writes David Martin, the VP of primary research at Nielsen Online, “but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty.â€
The survey plots minimum retention rates for varying sizes of Internet audiences and concludes that a user retention rate of 40% will limit a site’s growth to about 10%, and observes that Facebook and MySpace had new member retention rates of 80% while they were in similar boom phases. Now, they both hover around 70%.
“To be clear, a high retention rate doesn’t guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite,†writes Mr. Martin. “There simply aren’t enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point.â€
So what does it all mean–and does it even matter?
While Twitter did not respond to an email request for comment, in a February interview with Charlie Rose, Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams acknowledged that helping new Twitterers navigate the Twitter can be a challenge. “It`s very simple, although not obvious,†he said.
Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank says Twitter’s utility is still being developed, and users are waiting for it to add more of a clear-cut benefit to their lives. “I think really good products work for human beings irrespective of their age, and Facebook and MySpace have proven to be really good products,†Mr. Burbank said in a telephone interview.
He added: “I’m both surprised and not surprised by these numbers, because you do look at the growth they’ve had, and you expect that people are really finding value, but then you look at the nature of all the tweets that are published, and you say, well, maybe it’s not as valuable as maybe people hoped it was going to be.â€


I guess these things are OK for college kids and singles. My son and his friends keep up on Facebook. But I find I don't have time for these socializing sites. I come here to iVillage and Topix off and on during my workday, but otherwise I don't have time for on-line socializing.
"Now maybe if they make social site that does my laundry, washes my dishes, takes care of my family and
***Now maybe if they make social site that does my laundry, washes my dishes, takes care of my family and