Comments for Twitter, Come Clean Please at http://www.socialsphere.com , comment 1 to 6 out of 6 comments http://www.socialsphere.com Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:18:44 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-52 One final update: Bloomberg issued a correction after several emails with the reporter, who was VERY professional and responsive throughly the process: http://tinyurl.com/bk3bgf I've subsequently updated the Twitter Wikipedia page to reflect the most recent accurate data from Compete. It now reads, in part, "In November 2008, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research estimated that Twitter had 4-5 million users. A February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranks Twitter as the third largest social network (behind Facebook and MySpace), and puts the number of users at roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visitors at 55 million." Full Wikipedia entry on Twitter: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter - Todd Van Hoosear Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:42:17 +0100 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-51 Now that I look into the numbers more, and look at a recent blog post from Compete.com (http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/09/facebook-myspace-twitter-social-network/), I think the reporter has the right number, but the wrong scale: it's 55 million MONTHLY visitors, NOT daily. Total number of users: 6 million. - Todd Van Hoosear Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:42:30 +0100 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-50 And yet the Bloomberg reporter stands by his numbers. - Marcus Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:41:52 +0100 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-49 Well, as I reported on the Wikipedia Twitter entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter), I exchanged emails with the Bloomberg reporter. His information was obtained from a source inside Institutional Venture Partners, one of the VCs behind the recent funding round. He stands by the 10x growth number that 55 million implies, saying that according to Institutional Venture, the daily Twitter audience is "roughly twice the size of the American Idol audience and 10X the size of CNN nightly viewers." American Idol averages over 30 million viewers according to several sources (e.g., http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/american_idol_8/2009_Jan_14_debut_ratings). So Bloomberg is standing by the number. As I mentioned to our own Jonathan, the numbers are internally valid, but I want them confirmed by a third-party, as the Compete numbers are WAY off... Here's the link to the Wikipedia discussion page: http://tinyurl.com/cq5gwh - Todd Van Hoosear Mon, 16 Feb 2009 09:38:11 +0100 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-48 Good morning Robert, Didn't mean to bust your chops on this -- your Tweetdeck, Facebook, Twihrl, etc. comment is definitely an excellent point. Would def boost the numbers. My gut is that this is a good case study of a reporter mishearing, or misremembering :) stats, using it in a story, not being fact checked because the real data is not available -- and then ending up on Wikipedia. - John Mon, 16 Feb 2009 03:42:44 +0100 http://www.socialsphere.com/blogs/36-johns-blog/255-come-clean-twitter.html#comment-47 Hey John - ya busted me on the slideshare deck, I was putting it together VERY early on Saturday morning and should have double-checked that number myself. There actually was a minute when I was going to go to Compete to do so, but I remember being concerned that Compete wouldn't track usage through the API. (I use TweetDeck for all posts, and almost never go to the .com site.) Duly chastened at my haste, I will repost an edited deck at http://www.slideshare.net/thinkinc/whos-on-twitter r. - Robert Davis Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:32:34 +0100