Twitter’s growth flatlines – is it Stephen Fry’s fault?

By January 12 2010, 10:12 am 9 Comments
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Twitter has stopped growing (maybe) having peaked in July 2009 and not reached those highs again.

That heady summer when it seemed that every news story going had to mention Twitter and ideally Stephen Fry. This was even before he got stuck in a lift and tweeted about it and people went nuts.

Mashable has taken a look at some new numbers from Compete that says Twitter’s US traffic grew by just 1.45% from 22.48 million in November to 22.81 million unique visitors in December.

It quotes figures from Quantcast that tell a similar story. Those numbers say that having peaked at around 29.2 million users in July, Twitter has fallen to 23.6 million US uniques. That is clearly a significant drop (24%).

 

 

 

Figures from Comscore (that Mashable doesn’t quote) add to the picture. It reported that in November Twitter’s US traffic returned to growth after an 8% drop in October, but only rose by just above 100,000 visitors to 19.4 million. Three sets of numbers all telling a broadly similar picture.

 

It is worth asking at this point whether it is Stephen Fry’s fault? I mean seriously (sort of) let’s gather together and consider the facts.First in November he says he’s quitting (and then he’s unquitting so fast that I could hardly keep up) clearly throwing doubt into the mind of some noob Twitter users who feel strangely aligned with the great camp actor. What are they to do if the great Fry (who does an awesome line in fake moustaches) quits? That story made it to the New York Times not to mention the front page of The Sunday Times. It’s like he became the barometer of Twitter (is Twitter dead? Check Fry’s pulse). Okay, I’ll stop this nonsense, but if the number in January show any kind of drop after he has now taken an official break (to write a book) from tweeting (quit/unquit and kind of quit again – see how difficult it is to keep up?) then you know who to blame. That’s write @stephenfry I’m talking to you (you’re great by the way – I’m sad I saw you in ‘Bones’).

 

I digress, That said the fall off in US growth comes against a backdrop of a rise in Twitter’s international traffic. That rose by 3.5% in November to 60.3 million, according to ComScore. International growth is providing a lot fuel to the Twitter fire. The French apparently tweet as well. I know weird huh?

I wonder though if any of these figures tell us anything more than people stepped on the Twitter bandwagon as the media frenzy buzzed around it and then stepping off again when they realised it was not for them?

“What you mean people sit around here all day and write shit?” Yes, that is pretty much the Twitter story, but with many exciting links too.

These figures are also deeply flawed as what they don’t do is measure third-party applications like Tweetdeck or Twitterberry (or the many of the other third party apps out there).

Without that data these numbers have to be taken as deeply flawed (only half a story) and could also hint at the major take-up of mobile and third party app Twittering.

I get the impression that when people first start Twittering they use their web browsers before working that there are a myriad of other ways to do this who 140 character thing. Techcrunch reported in a similar piece last month that third party apps could account for half of all Twitter’s use. Although probably worth pointing out that Nielsen has said (but provided not data) that similar drop off rates have also hit third party apps.

And taking all of that into account (third party apps and mobile use) there is not flatline at all in Twitter’s growth as Mashable suggests.

What I do think is true and I agree entirely with what Mashable blogged here is that “Twitter itself has a limited appeal”. There are only those who have so much to say and need to in touch with a particularly industry or audience. It will never be as big as Facebook and it doesn’t need to be, but it will still grow and it will still be big. There are possibly around 90 million people using it around the world and in any market that is a significant audience.

 

[Twitter] 

  • http://www.neilperkin.typepad.com/ N PERKIN

    I’d say that was a good assessment, Gordon – I’ve witnessed a lot of people sign up to it to see what all the fuss is about and then just not use it. Unless you have a ready made community of people you know who are already on it (and using it), I think you have to work harder to get the value out it. Like you say, it’s certainly not going to be for everyone, but it certainly is significant.

  • Rick Sareen

    OOOOh. so exciting! Another couple of periods like this and I will be able to say I told you so ;-) )
    The last para captures it. Twitter is for short, timely messages to a specific group of people who wish to receive the message. Anyone who thinks it is a broadcast medium is being overawed by the fact that it can be done. (Dogs and balls).
    If it survives at all it will become like CB radio – specialist but useful to those who use it.

  • Gordon Macmillan

    @Neil definitely, new people will still come along and make a go of it – the piece in the NY Times recently about a 50 something reporter coming late to it, but finding it very useful underscored that for me. http://tinyurl.com/ydhr44o

    @Rick – i now what you mean, but if you can get a news feed (@CNNbrk or @breakingnews) with millions of followers then you have a broadcast medium.

    On a B2B level BR’s own following grew 100% between October and December (small beans 10,000 followers to 20,000 but surely an indicator of future growth, no?).

  • Iain Brown

    Gordon, it is a useful tool for media and marketing, nothing more nothing less…it will never take over the world as some thought, it will be a great way to communicate with customers if they exist for a business but in terms of generating new customers, I don’t think so.

  • Gordon Macmillan

    @Chris the customer service element of Twitter has been really interesting and i can see positive buzz from the way that a business deals with its customers via social media as being important in terms of overall brand attraction.

  • Matthew Hunt

    Yeah, I reckon that’s about spot on. And not dissimilar to some thoughts I had a while back: http://inoticedthis.blogspot.com/2009/04/21st-century-newswire.html

  • http://stephenfry.com Andrew Sampson

    An amusing article but one with alot of truisms. The trick is to not just look at the traffic data but also what is happening within the conversations, particularly of someone with a profile such as @stephenfry. In the months you described we saw many changes in responses to Stephen’s Tweets. I’ll write them up at some point on our company blog.

  • Gordon Macmillan

    Thanks Andrew let me know when you do. Would be interesting to take a look.

  • Kevin Gordon

    Bird Flu

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