Slashdot Mirror
Of 1.2 Billion Twitter Posts, 71% Are Ignored
destinyland writes "1.2 billion Twitter 'tweets' were analyzed over two months by analytics company Sysomos, who concluded that a whopping 71% of them got no reaction whatsoever — no online responses, and no Twitter 'retweets.' 'Only a small number of users actually have the ability to engage on Twitter in a significant way,' the researchers conclude, noting that just 6% of Twitter's status updates ever get retweeted (while 23% get a reply). And among those status updates, 85% have exactly one response, while only 1.53% of Twitter conversations are more than three levels deep — where a reply receives a response which then generates a second reply." I am astounded by the claim that nearly three out of ten tweets actually do get any response.
I don't really see why this is a particularly surprising statistic. So most Tweets are only read by users... Most Slashdot stories I don't reply to and only read, does that mean that Slashdot is somehow limited or has a large number of dead stories? Of course not, it's just that most people do lots more reading than writing.
just because something didn't get an answer, doesn't mean it was "ignored"..
which is totally what she said
In my case, 100% are ignored.
Just because nobody replies to the tweet doesn't mean people aren't reading it.
You might as well say that X% of newspaper articles are 'ignored' because they don't generate letters to the Editor about them.
I am NOT expressing any opinion on the subjective usefulness of the average tweet, however.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
If you are using Twitter to have conversations you are doing it wrong. Back in the dinosaur age if something happened to you(passed a test got herpes whatever) you would actually have to phone/write several people saying the exact same thing. You weren't always looking for a response but just wanted to share the news. Thats what twitter is for. It's not really meant for deep conversations.
Monstar L
You're right. We're all ignoring your comment.
Twitter isn't designed for discussions, it's designed for announcements. If a weatherman makes an announcement that a tornado is forming north of a city, you wouldn't expect everyone - or anyone for that matter - to call him up and have a discussion about it.
Why are we assuming that tweets are intended to net a response?
Exactly - the thing I like about Twitter is that information can be disseminated passively by, for example, social and sports clubs but in a way that doesn't continually bombard email accounts with endless drivel. I can pop onto twitter and quickly skim to see what is what and not have to delete every damn message, as I do with with spam. So my response to twitter posts can be to go do something in the real world. Outside. A Tweet might even take me somewhere where there's no connectivity at all! So measuring value by retweets is franklly bonkers.
and how many times does the response go off channel??
ie farm1785: SVR Gandalf ON FIRE
farm1785: HLN ACTIVE PWR Discon rack 45
[45 tweets from service monitors]
none of these would be responded to by Twitter
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Twitter - perfecting the art of people talking at, rather than to, each other.
So, then tweets are like prayers?:
I think you may be onto something ... only pushers (clergy/marketing) and feeble-minded people (believers/customers) use them.
Its usually a good indication that they are ignored or virtually ignored.
So the social rule on twitter is to always acknowledge receipt of any post? When someone says "I'm in section 2A of the stadium", you're supposed to tweet back "ack'd" instead of going to talk with them in person? If a twitterer gets any responses at all, ever, then that's a good indication that all of their stuff is being read by someone, but only a few things merit a response.
Its usually a good indication that they are ignored or virtually ignored. Perhaps they are read but they would be discarded as quickly as they are read, without any further discussion, comment or "nod of the head" as W B Yeats would say..
Uhmmmm, not necessarily. For example, I follow certain lead developers, tech entrepreneurs, scientists and ex-coworkers on Twitter. Typically they post some very interesting tweets that I simply bookmark or forward to friends and present/former colleagues. I rarely re-tweet. Sometimes I reply back with a tweet, but never engage in a twitter tech-related conversation.
Maybe my experience with Twitter might not be the norm, but I highly doubt that it is that rare either. Despite of what some people like to think, there are brilliant people on twitter producing information, much of which ends up being consumed outside of the twitter system of things. And that's what makes it very hard to gauge a tweet's lack of relevance. The lack of tracking such consumption constitutes a lack of evidence of something being ignored.
Trying to prove, infer or claim with some accuracy that something in Twitter is being ignored because there is no visible proof that it is not is akin to proving a negative. In other words, don't do it, for it is not logical.