According to an article at Digi.no twitter is struggling to keep it’s users. According to the article Nielsen Online has made a study that shows that less that 40% of American users return to the service the next month.
Another article at itavisen.no states that 10% of the users are generating 90% of the tweets. Also that more than 50% of the users tweet less than once every 74 days.
Is that so strange? Twitter is the-most-hyped-service-ever. So hyped that most everyone feels forced to sign-up and try the service that everyone is talking about, but very few see the value in.
Come on, who really have any benefit of reading less than 140 character messages from people you know, nearly know or wish you knew has done this, or is going to do that.
I have tried Twitter for some months now, I follow some friends, colleagues and some companies and some professional twitters in different industries. Friends and colleagues mostly twitter nonsense.
I’m late for the bus
Going to a movie tonight
Playing PS3
Information that I really have no need for. If the “I’m going to the movies tonight” tweet is a hidden invite for others to join then please call, or send an email. Much easier for everyone.
The companies mostly use twitter as a new channel to advertise their products. The only tweeters worth following is the professional ones. People who really have something to talk about, but their tweets are usually bit.ly or tinyurl links to a blog post they have written. Well I already subscribe to their blogs using an RSS reader so again the tweet is mostly not useful.
So is twitter useless? In my eyes yes. Twitter is mostly useless for me (and I image a lot of other “normal” people). But for someone that needs to notify a large uncontrolled group of people fast I can see the value. That especially media buffs and journalists can have use for twitter. News travel fast, very fast on twitter, and if you have time to scan the messages as they arrive I imagine you can pick up quite a lot of stories.
So I have decided to end my twitter account like I did my Facebook account (too much noise and nagging). If anyone needs me call, text or email me. Otherwise I’ll pick up what’s happening when it hits the news, possibly a few hours later than on twitter, but that’s just fine.
I’ll finish this post with a link to a College humor video about Twitter in real life:
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1909386
(and as a last bite-me, this blog post was announced on twitter)