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.
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.
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.