According to a research by Nielsen Online in April 2009, more than 60 percent of web users who sign up to Twitter fail to return to the micro-blogging site after just one month.
Nielsen Online's Vice President for Primary Research David Martin, wrote on the website: "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.”
Quitting Tweeting and Stalking
There are several reasons as to why the Twitter craze has never really caught on, despite being wildly popular among celebrities, with many such famous endorsements by Oprah Winfrey, Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Silverman and more.
Dubbed the catchy moniker of “Twitter quitters”, these users have cited various reasons for not returning to the website. Most of them joined simply to find out what the fuss is all about, to learn the true meaning behind pop culture’s latest buzzword “Tweet”.
However, once they’ve signed up, they perceived it as pointless – many claim it gives rise to a stalker culture. It is immensely interesting as to the lengths a person would go to reveal his or her personal information on cyberspace; yet in real life is surrounded by walls and gates, literally and figuratively.
Much speculation has been done on how social networking sites intrudes upon people’s privacy, and Twitter takes that step to a whole new level, with nothing but 140-word updates on one’s life directly addressed to one’s “followers”, who may or may not be one’s friends in outside of virtual reality. Following celebrities on Twitter is like obsessively poring over paparazzi magazines – it does actually close the gap between fans and their idols.
Lack of Context: Swine Flu Panic
It is nigh impossible to establish a proper context on issues within 140 words – a particular case in point is the “Twitter-scare” with the swine flu pandemic which has received the second highest threat rating by the World Health Organisation. Trigger-happy Tweeters and unregulated content generate misinformed hysteria – people looking to allay their fears would certainly not be helped by these examples of Twitter updates:
- I'm concerned about the swine flu outbreak in us and mexico could it be germ warfare?
- In the pandemic Spanish Flu of 1918-19, my Grandfather said bodies were piled like wood in our local town....SWINE FLU = DANGER
- be careful of the swine flu!!!! (may lead to global epidemic) Outbreak in Mexico. 62 deaths so far!! Don't eat pork from Mexico!!
Twitter vs Facebook
Comparing Twitter’s rise to that of Facebook’s meteoric one is not uncommon, but the study clearly shows that while Twitter’s customer return rate is plummeting, Facebook’s number of users remain fairly stable. The latter, along with fellow social networking giant MySpace, average a retention percentage of 60%, in contrast to Twitter’s 40% (30% before Oprah promoted Twitter on her show).
Netizens have provided speculations regarding this, many of them claiming that Facebook’s applications and layout are far superior – being able to upload pictures, play online games, comment on each other’s web activities – as compared to Twitter’s limited functions.
Final Thoughts
However, the Nielsen study could be inaccurate as to total users, since it only takes into account visits to the Twitter.com URL. This discounts the Tweeting taken place on mobile phones and on desktop applications like Tweetdeck or Twhirl.
It is still too early to come to a conclusion on the web phenomenon that is Twitter – perhaps it just needs more time to fully ingrain itself into popular culture.
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