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Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

blog.chrisricca.com

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Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#11

Post by philwelch »

Qz wrote: post #7
philwelch wrote: post #5

You can't just use search engine queries as a proxy for popularity, especially on something like a website. Is it possible that Twitter serves a more technically savvy portion of users that knows how to use the address bar in their browsers? Or that people are more interested in researching about Facebook than Twitter even if they use both?

Even if you're right on all of those things, the difference in the numbers is staggering, and what you're talking about can't really account for that big of a difference.

That's true--I think Facebook is more popular than Twitter, but not necessarily to the magnitude search query traffic would suggest.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#14

Post by cookiecaper »

zackattack wrote: post #13

Call me racist and you'd be wrong, but urban blacks LOVE twitter and it has become a serious part of their everyday social lives. Breakups, hookups, gang wars -- it's on Twitter, and it's real.

You know I've noticed this. Every single time I am convinced to check out Twitter I found the great majority of the posts on trending topics to have profile pictures of black people next to them. It is definitely an interesting phenomenon.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#15

Post by keltex »

On a side note, with google "open" about so much, why doesn't the google trends graph show absolute numbers rather than this arbitrary scale? I know they're trying to protect their true business model (search+advertising), but it would nice to share a little bit.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#16

Post by ChrisRicca »

Judson wrote: post #10

To think about it, this isn't all that surprising Facebook has to many users that a lot of people use google to get to Facebook (some just blindly clicking on the first link: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_yo... ) To me it seems like Twitter just hasn't spread to the computer illiterate crowd, so this kind of graph is unsurprising.

Navigational search definitely has a lot to do with the graph. I don't think that's computer illiteracy, though. That's just how the normals use the internet ;) We techies are the fringe.

http://cdixon.org/2010/01/22/techies-and-normals/

I see the navigational search as an indication of mainstream adoption.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#17

Post by mpk »

zackattack wrote: post #13

Call me racist and you'd be wrong, but urban blacks LOVE twitter and it has become a serious part of their everyday social lives. Breakups, hookups, gang wars -- it's on Twitter, and it's real.

I wouldn't attribute that to race but rather to it working well for the needs of a small subset of a demographic (trend setters) and as they use it more, others join in.

It would be interesting to see twitter networks broken down by demographic and an analysis of what each group uses it for. Some people use it to convey social information ("I'm in the checkout line at Walmart"), others as a stunted form of IRC ("Oh no, you did not just say that!") and most of the people I follow use it as a substitute for email where the primary purpose is to send links around.

If anyone feels compelled to do the research, I'd love to read your findings.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#18

Post by _delirium »

cookiecaper wrote: post #14
zackattack wrote: post #13

Call me racist and you'd be wrong, but urban blacks LOVE twitter and it has become a serious part of their everyday social lives. Breakups, hookups, gang wars -- it's on Twitter, and it's real.

You know I've noticed this. Every single time I am convinced to check out Twitter I found the great majority of the posts on trending topics to have profile pictures of black people next to them. It is definitely an interesting phenomenon.

I've noticed that also, but I suspect it's mostly how people use twitter, rather than the overall population of twitter users; i.e. black twitterers are more likely than white twitterers to post in large public hashtags as a sort of chatroom.

A study (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/17-Twitter-and-Statu...) did find that 26% of blacks vs. 19% of whites use "Twitter or another status update service", but it also found a large correlation with age. Since black demographics skew younger than white demographics, my guess is that the 7% racial gap would disappear if you controlled for age.

Re: Maybe Twitter isn't that popular...

#20

Post by _delirium »

philwelch wrote: post #5

You can't just use search engine queries as a proxy for popularity, especially on something like a website. Is it possible that Twitter serves a more technically savvy portion of users that knows how to use the address bar in their browsers? Or that people are more interested in researching about Facebook than Twitter even if they use both?

Also, Twitter is disproportionately popular among mobile users, many of whom don't even access it via a webbrowser. I'm not sure it's exactly the same as tech-savviness, either; I'll see if I can look it up, but I remember reading that Twitter is particularly popular among non-traditional internet users, especially African-Americans, who have a mobile device but rarely use a laptop or desktop computer. Facebook, by contrast, is mainly a website.
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