Research Questions Twitter’s Long-Term Success
New research is questioning the long-term success of Twitter, the latest social networking sensation used by celebrities ranging from Oprah Winfrey to Britney Spears, Reuters reported.
More than 60 percent of Twitter users stopped using the free social networking site a month after joining, according to data from Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic.
David Martin, Nielsen Online’s vice president of primary research, said in a statement that Twitter’s audience retention rate, or the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent.
Twitter has languished below 30 percent retention for most of the past 12 months.
The micro-blogging site was created three years ago in San Francisco as an Internet-based service that could allow people to follow the 140-character messages or "tweets" of friends and celebrities. Tweets can be sent and received from computer screens or mobile devices.
But with the edition of several high-profile celebrities like actor Ashton Kutcher and U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey, Twitter has experienced a recent explosion in popularity.
Even President Barack Obama used Twitter during last year’s campaign while other celebrities such as NBA star Shaquille O’Neal and singers Britney Spears and Miley Cyrus have also jumped on the bandwagon, sending out “tweets” updating fans on breaking news or even the mundane details of daily life.
Nielsen Online claims that Twitter’s website had more than 7 million unique visitors in February this year compared to 475,000 in February a year ago.
However, Twitter does not disclose the official number of its users. But a retention rate of 40 percent will limit a site’s growth to a 10 percent reach figure over the longer term, Martin said.
He suggests there simply aren’t enough new users to make up for the defecting ones after a certain point.
Both Facebook and MySpace enjoyed retention rates that were twice as high when they first launched and Martin said those rates only rose when they went through their explosive growth phases.
Each of the popular social networking sites currently show a 70 percent retention rate.
Martin believes Twitter has enjoyed a nice ride over the last few months, but it will not be able to sustain its meteoric rise without establishing a higher level of user loyalty.
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