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Twitter Communications Social Networks

44% of Twitter Users Have Never Tweeted 121

Posted by samzenpus from the 140-characters-to-go dept.
First time accepted submitter RileyWalz (3614865) writes "Twopcharts (a third party website that records and monitors activity on Twitter) is reporting that about 44 percent of all 947 million accounts on Twitter have never posted a single tweet. Of the 550 million users who have tweeted before, 43 percent posted their last tweet over a year ago. And only about 13.3 percent have tweeted in the last 30 days. This could be a sign of many users just signing up and forgetting about their account, or they just prefer reading other's posts. Twitter is not commenting on this data, saying that they do not talk about third-party information related to its service."
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44% of Twitter Users Have Never Tweeted More

44% of Twitter Users Have Never Tweeted

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  • Probably typical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chrisq ( 894406 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:06AM (#46745249)
    Most will have signed up, thought it crap, and never returned. Most people don't delete dead accounts and counting them as "users" is as false as counting someone as driving a Toyota if they once took a test drive.

    • Re:Probably typical (Score:5, Insightful)

      by buchner.johannes ( 1139593 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:08AM (#46745259) Homepage Journal

      No, what it means is that the majority of accounts are bots, created to increase follower-numbers.

      • Re:Probably typical (Score:5, Informative)

        by Johann Lau ( 1040920 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:12AM (#46745277) Homepage Journal

        No, it means both.

        • Re:Probably typical (Score:5, Interesting)

          by penix1 ( 722987 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:21AM (#46745307) Homepage

          And a third group people are totally forgetting.... Parents and students where the schools has said it will use Twitter to tell them of emergencies. They get the account solely to receive these notices.

        • I've had an account for a few years now (under my real name, darn it), and have posted all of two or three times; the only reason I joined was for a contest.. and I won. (I got a free Kymera wand out of the deal, totally worth it)
          Other than that, I just don't see much call for it.

      • In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:38AM (#46745349) Homepage

        In other news: 44% of Slashdot readers have never posted a single comment.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        This exactly.

        If you use a tool like who.unfollowed.me you'll quickly notice a trend that about 50% of the "people" who follow you are doing so only to either make you visit their website, or click on links in their stream, or they message you with spam links. These accounts quickly disappear or stop working after a few days, use photos stolen from other twitter users or from dating sites, and generally are "trash" followers.

        The ones that haven't posted a thing are generally people who read-only, have more t

        • If a name is a "real name", pay a one time charge by credit/debit card with the same name on it. This would put a green verified box next to the user name. The blue box will continue to be used for identities that twitter staff have verified on their own.

          How much longer do you think the twitter staff is going to verify accounts on their own, if they can get people to pay instead?

          If your answer to that question is longer than the time it took you to read the question, you're kidding yourself.

          If a name is a nickname, pesudo-name, or a business/brand, then the user must mail a business card showing both the brand, twitter handle and name used.This would put a different color icon (maybe violet) that signifies that this has been professionally identified, and clicking on it should show the business card.

          All that the latter does is verify that the twitter account is associated with the brand and not the reverse of the user verifying their name.

          No. All it does is verify that the user had enough money to get one business card printed and mailed to Twitter.

      • Re:Probably typical (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ildon ( 413912 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @07:00AM (#46745595)

        There's a third type of person who never tweets. One that essentially uses Twitter as an RSS feed, news aggregator, and/or joke-a-day (or joke-a-five-minutes) feed. They could still be considered "active" users, in that they use the service, but don't feel the need to post.

        • But, curiously enough, they're indistinguishable from the bots.

          • But, curiously enough, they're indistinguishable from the bots.

            Not really, as a bot by definition isn't a person.

            People who sign up for Twitter and use it a as a news source or whatever are still getting something out of it.

            • I meant to imply "when reading these marketing stats from the server end." As-in: the figures that the advertisers are paying for.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Gonoff ( 88518 )

          I use it this way and cannot see any other use for it.

          Want to send me a message? Try email, SMS, skype.G+ and so on. Even Facebook.

          Want to send me a picture - see above...

          I see no other use for a 140 character max message than to replace the RSS feed

        • this is completely me. I have three people I follow. 1) My wife. She logged in and followed herself on my account. 2) a band I like 3) DDO (D&D MMO) because it tells me when there are special deals, because I think that their normal prices are too high, but I enjoy the game. I never post. I just check every once in a while to see if they have posted anything interesting recently.

        • Can someone explain to me in a sentence or two how and why Twitter is useful? I've had an account for many years, but every time I log in to check, it just looks like a mess. And yet there are millions of people who (apparently) think it's awesome, so I must be doing something wrong.

          I would love to hear some examples of how others have found Twitter useful.

          • Shockingly, I have gotten better support from Samsung's twitter support account than their phone and email support.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hodet ( 620484 )

        You mean those hot women that are following me are not real?!

      • Why can't it just mean they want to follow tweets but no make their own? I don't do twitter, but this sounds suspiciously like the elitist arguments that used to be on usenet or some bulletin board systems, where readers who didn't post were given insulting names like "lurkers".

    • No it just means they are all following Nadine Dorries and can't get a tweet in edgewise!

    • Re:Probably typical (Score:5, Interesting)

      by shri ( 17709 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .cmarirhs.> on Monday April 14, 2014 @06:11AM (#46745433) Homepage

      Most people are consumers of tweets. They follow people, click through their links / updates etc. If you look at forums and other community media, you'll see that getting >10% of users to contribute is actually VERY good.

      • I have a twitter account and have never posted, a facebook account and never posted, a youtube and + account and never posed, xda account, yahoo groups, etc. I doubt I've posted on /. in years, but I still read every day. I'm a consumer. And to me these are more news services then social interactions. I post to reddit often, but usually drunk and those accounts don't last long...

      • Most people are consumers of tweets.

        That's something to be grateful about. Most of the ones who do tweet have precious little to say, so if the rest joined in the signal would be buried even deeper in the noise.

    • Re:Probably typical (Score:4, Interesting)

      by hodet ( 620484 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @09:21AM (#46746395)

      You don't need to tweet for twitter to be useful. Many people follow others or use it to keep on top of things. For example, if there is a minor earthquake somewhere there is no better place to really find out what happened quickly than twitter. "Holy crap, #EARTHQUAKE, shook the building for 30 seconds"

    • OMG TWITTER IS DYING!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mlts ( 1038732 )

      You can count me in that category. I signed up way back in 2008 because after getting out of college, prospective employers would demand if I had a FB/MySpace/Twitter account, and if not, the interview was up, as the HR rep felt that it was mandatory for anyone in IT to have social networking accounts to be considered up to date in skills.

      So, I created a Twitter account, followed EMC and a few other names, and called it done... it did make the bean counters happy because they thought I was "with it".

      • I'm sort of in that category. I got my actual name, but my only tweets (~200 of them) are actually from a russian hacker/spammer that generously disappeared and left my account intact.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 )
      I've done this on Twitter (signed up, thought it crap, forgot my password, never returned(as that same account)) at least a dozen times.

      Same with Facebook. I have one throwaway facebook account for just about every damn application or website that makes me "log in / sign up using facebook" - and in each case I promptly forget my username and password and never log in again.

      I imagine that's more typical than those companies care to admit.

  • Too easy (Score:5, Funny)

    by kruach aum ( 1934852 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @05:11AM (#46745271)

    I wish the other 56% didn't either.

  • I bet there's a huge amount of dummy accounts in almost all websites. If you flip this around and look that 56% have said something, that's pretty good.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I bet there's a huge amount of dummy accounts in almost all websites. If you flip this around and look that 56% have said something, that's pretty good.

      Depending on what's meant by "dummy account," I estimate approximately 100% fall into that category. ;o)

      BTW, how many twats would a Twitter twat tweet if a Twitter twat could tweet twats?

  • I wonder (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    What percentage of slashdot accounts have never commented? Probably much lower because of AC here, but I bet there are quite a few. For example, I think I made an account here one drunken night, but I have never used it.

  • Somehow the report of '44% of twitter accounts have never been used' has been morphed by the reporter into '44% of twitter users have never posted'.

    I know people with multiple Twitter accounts, separation between business and pleasure accounts... some just to follow others without sticking their nose above the parapet (and are never tweeted from), some for larks, some for business.

    44% of Twitter accounts != 44% of Twitter users.

    The original poster has read some report on the internet and inferred meaning w

  • And 99% never posted anything interesting (Score:3)

    by Katatsumuri ( 1137173 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @06:01AM (#46745405)
    This is okay. Twitter is labelled as a "microblogging" platform, but many people use it as a multicast IM, or just a newsfeed app. Not to mention the bots.
    • I suspect that the okay-ness of this fact depends on whether you are a disinterested observer (in which case your points are valid and likely account for many silent users, along with some amount of abandoned accounts, squatters, etc.) or whether you are somebody at Twitter, who would probably prefer to keep their (laughable) early post-IPO value of something north of 30 billion dollars, rather than have further bad news after announcing in Febuary of this year that you'd lost half a billion dollars in the

  • I only signed up to see the tweet from Kim saying she had to buy two airplane seats because she couldn't get her fat ass into the seat or when her sister had to pay extra baggage fees for that melon on top of her head since it was considered a carry-on item.

  • This is nothing when compared... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ctrl-alt-canc ( 977108 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @06:44AM (#46745537)
    ...to the fact that about 85% of world population does not use Twitter!
  • 99.9999% have never posted anything of any value.

    • I'd think there's enough consensus out there to say that there's never been anything of value on Facebook.

  • It's a good service (Score:3)

    by jones_supa ( 887896 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @07:58AM (#46745803)

    Many people think that Twitter is some hipster bullshit, and I was somewhat in the same boat before. But when I slapped a Twitter client to the side of my desktop and subscribed to a bunch of cool tech guys and some news agencies, I really started to enjoy the stuff. The perfect way to stay updated to world events in easily digestible small capsules. Also much better platform to discuss nerdy stuff than Facebook.

    Now only waiting for the angry AC to call me a Twitter shill.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )

      I have never "tweeted" but I do follow a few blogs, individuals, events, etc.
      The twitter feed itself doesn't provide much information but the links are usually valuable.

  • Here's why I did so. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Simulant ( 528590 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @08:13AM (#46745865) Journal
    I signed up and never posted simply to use twitter credentials on other web sites.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thoth ( 7907 )

      I did something similar. I signed up for the twitter account in order to follow a handful of others, and get event results (not all of which I am interested in). Of some use is an education account I follow for occasional tips learning a foreign language.

      I think twitter is great for "one to many" information dissemination.

    • Similar story here. I signed up to be able to truthfully claim that I was familiar with Twitter for a job application. I looked at the user interface and I knew enough to talk about it if asked. Never posted, never followed, never went back.

  • No kidding (Score:3)

    by ilsaloving ( 1534307 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @08:22AM (#46745913)

    And when I see (usually in the news) posts from other twitters, it makes me wish the other 46% would do the same.

    There is very little you can constructively say in just 140 characters. Twitter is great for only very specific scenarios such as status reports, quick facts, quick questions or witty one-liners.

    Everything else is just inanity from people who think the more exclamation marks you use at the end of a sentence, the more seriously you should take their statement.

    The sole reason I set up an account was so I could follow a couple of local restaurants because they post useful things like their daily specials. And that ST:TNG S8 guy. Too bad he stopped writing new plot synopses.

  • Will everyone commenting to this please do so in at most 140 characters. Thank you.

  • And I wish more of the remaining 56% would follow suit...

  • The number of dormant accounts isn't terribly surprising to anyone that's run a site with users (although its likely much higher than Twitter would like broadly known). The bigger concern is really how the high number of fake / zombie accounts on Twitter impact's it's business model. Advertisers pay for clicks/follows and in talking to advertisers I hear a frustration with the not insignificant amount of paid 'traffic' coming from bots/fake accounts that simply troll the site clicking links and 'following'

  • What Twitter IS Good For (Score:3)

    by CMYKjunkie ( 1594319 ) on Monday April 14, 2014 @10:29AM (#46747203)
    Since I am the nerd of the family (I'm sure many of you can appreciate that), family always asks me: should I get on Twitter? My answer is "probably not" because it is really terrible as a person-to-person communication platform. 140 char limit will do that to you.

    I use Twitter and it does have some uses, and I tell the family and friends that it's useful for...

    * Breaking news (it's like a wire-service for the masses);

    * Closely following a product/celebrity/athlete/event/sport;

    * Posting a short question on a specific topic via #;

    * Posting or finding witticisms and satire;

    * Posting or finding a status report (not viable to foster a discussion by any means); and

    * Finding spam, click-bait, impersonators of real people, bots, pr0n, and completely inaccurate information.

    I mainly use Twitter myself to follow athletes in the NFL (primarily my team, Green Bay) and the three forms of motorsport I watch: NASCAR, Formula 1, and IndyCar. I really like Twitter during one of these sporting events because posters can give you more detail/insight into the event or people involved than just the TV or radio broadcasters (Example: sideline/pit reporters or members of a team participating in the event who can tweet during the event.)

    IMHO though, the spam/bots/clickbait is out of control and detracts from the platform.

  • I could care less about "oh pasta here is so good" tweets from some celeb. I'm in that 44% and I set up an account just to hold my name.

  • I signed up for Twitter as soon as it went public to preserve my name. However, I have yet to issue a single Tweet and only follow less than a handful of people I selected years ago. If I ever see the value of Twitter, I might tweet one day.

  • Which is worse? The ones who never post, or the ones who post once and never return [twitter.com]?

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