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As IPO Nears, Do Twitter's Active User Claims Add Up?

Posted by Soulskill on from the this-generation's-'billions-and-billions-served' dept.

netbuzz writes "With Twitter's IPO looming, an independent developer who is intimately familiar with the makeup and behavior of the site's users says his analysis of 1 million random accounts does not support the company's claims of 215 million active monthly users and 100 million active daily users. In fact, Si Dawson, who until March ran Twit Cleaner, a popular app used to weed deadwood and spammers from Twitter accounts, puts those numbers at 112 million and 48 million, respectively, or about half of what Twitter claims."

2 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. None of that matters by gelfling · · Score: 4, Informative

    Twitter doesn't make any money and it's not clear how they would. But again, none of that matters. It's buzz it's bubble it's sizzle it's cool. Money will 'develop' on it's own. And if not - Microsoft will buy them and kill it.

    1. Re:None of that matters by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 3, Informative

      They'll make money the same way all of their predecessors did.
      1) Start "free" social-something service.
      2) Become popular.
      3) IPO, or get bought by some company who did exactly the same thing as you're doing now.
      4) Stick ads everywhere, and sell whatever data you can glean from your users and content to whoever will pay for it.
      5) Profit!

      I'm no hippie, but I think it's kind of sad (and insulting) that everything seems to revolve around advertisement and consumer data nowadays.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...