The first time I wrote about Twitter was March 2007. My, how time and Tweets fly. With 500 million registered users and 250 million Tweets flying across the Twitterverse every day, Twitter has become a fabric of our digital culture. Twitter is now ingrained in our digital DNA and is reflected in our lifestyle and how we connect and communicate with one another.
While many struggle to understand its utility or its significance in the greater world of media, it is the most efficient global information network in existence today. News no longer breaks, it Tweets. People have demonstrated the speed and efficacy of social networking by connecting to one another based on interests (interest graph) rather then limiting connections to relationships (social graph). Twitter represents a promising intersection of new media, relationships, traditional media and information to form one highly connected human network.
I recently stumbled upon a well done infographic created by Infographic Labs to communicate the state of of the Twitterverse. It’s quite grand in its design. So, to help get the most out of it, I’ve dissected it into smaller byte-sized portions.
A Brief History of Twitter
July 2006 – Twttr’s hatched (Yes that’s how it was originally spelled), by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone
July 2007 – Raises $1 million, valued at $5 million
November 2008 – President-elect Barack Obama thanks his Twitter followers
2009 – 2 billion Tweets per day, Twitter raises $35 million
Dec 2010 – Raises $200 million, now valued at $3.7 billion
2011 – 100 million active users sending 33 billion Tweets per day
The Top 3 Countries for Twitter
1. United States – 107.7 million
2. Brasil – 33.3 million
3. Japan – 29.9 million
The Top 5 Moments in Tweets
1. “Castle in the Sky” TV Screening – 25,088 Tweets per second (TPS)
2. Superbowl XLVI Last Minutes – 10,245 TPS
3. (Tied) Madonna at the Superbowl – 10,245 TPS
4. Tim Tebow’s Win – 9,420 TPS
5. Beyonce at the VMAs – 8,869 TPS
Top 6 Reasons for Retweeting
1. Interesting content – 92%
2. Personal connection – 84%
3. Humor – 66%
4. Incentive – 32%
5. Retweet requests – 26%
6. Celebrity status – 21%
Top 4 Ways People Decide to Follow You
1.Suggested by friends – 69%
2. Online search – 47%
3. Suggested by Twitter – 44%
4. Promotions – 31%
Top Factoids You Didn’t Know About Twitter
1. Twitter’s projected ad revenue in 2012 is $259 million
2. Projected ad revenue by 2014 is $540 million
3. 11 Twitter accounts created every second
4. 1 million accounts opened every day
Brian Solis