Terrific Twitter Facts and Figures

Those who follows my blogs and those who are in touch with me, may know that I always prefer TWITTER than all other social networking sites.Thus in this regard here is a piece of information on twitter.

Twitter has always suffered an image problem and is not usually taken very seriously by the general public. Its name doesn’t help with some people even saying that ‘Twitter is for twits’. Despite this glamor and brand problem this has not held back its growth after its humble origins and launch in 2006.
Since then Twitter has gained popularity worldwide and is
 estimated to have 225 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries per day. It is sometimes described as the “SMS of the Internet” and its 140 character limit keeps the messages short and simple.
Its attraction as a social web media platform is maybe in its simplicity and real time messaging that enables breaking news and information to hit the web instantly without filters and censorship.


30 Terrific Twitter Facts and Figures

1. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July of that year.
2. Twitter’s origins lie in a “day long brainstorming session” that was held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. While sitting in a park on a children’s slide and eating Mexican food, Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group.
3. The first Twitter prototype was used as an internal service for Odeo employees and the full version was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006
4. The original project code name for the service was ‘twttr‘, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by the name of the social media image website ‘Flickr’ and the five-character length of American SMS short codes.
5. The team finally settled on the name ‘twitter‘, which means ‘chirps from birds’ in essence ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’.
6. The tipping point for Twitter’s popularity was the 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.
7. It had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007
8. In 2008 there were only 3 million registered users
9. In 2008 there were only 1.25 million tweets per day
10. Jan 2008  there were only 8 employees
11. In 2009 or 2 years ago Twitter had 8 million registered users
12. In 2011 there are now over 400 employees
13. 75% of Twitter traffic comes from third-party applications
14. 60% of all tweets come from third-party apps
15. There are over 100,000 Twitter applications
16. A Forrester report revealed  that “Twitterers are the connected of the connected, overindexing at all Social Media habits.  For example, Twitterers are three times more likely to be Creators (people who create and share content via blog posts and YouTube) as the general US population” (source Forrester report “Who Flocks to Twitter”)
17. 3 years, 2 months and 1 day…the time it took from the first tweet to the billionth tweet.
18. It now takes one week for users to send a billion Tweets.
19. In March 2010 the average number of tweets people sent per week was the the 350 million.
20. 140 million is the average number of tweets people sent per day in February 2011
21. 177 million tweets sent on March 11, 2011.
22. When Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 there were 456 tweets per second (TPS)…a record at that time.
23. The current TPS record is 6,939 tweets per second set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day
24. 572,000 is the number of new accounts created in one day (March 12, 2011)
25. 460,000 is the average number of new accounts per day created in February, 2011
26. 182% is the increase in number of mobile users over the past year.
27. In March 2011 there are an estimated 225 million users
28. 25 billion tweets sent on Twitter in 2010
29. 100 million new accounts added on Twitter in 2010
30. The first unassisted off-Earth Twitter message was posted from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on January 22, 2010
31. 5 years ago Twitter was just an idea with only 3 people working on it.
32. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched on the 15th July 2006.
33. Twitter’s origins lie in a “day long brainstorming session” that was held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. While sitting in a park and eating Mexican food, Dorsey introduced the idea of Twitter.
34. The first Twitter prototype was an internal service for Odeo employees.
35. The original project code name for the service was ‘twttr‘. It was inspired by the name of the site ‘Flickr’ and SMS short codes.
36. The name was finalised as Twitter (as we know), meaning ‘chirps from birds’ and more relevantly ‘a short burst of inconsequential information’.
37. The 2007 South by Southwest (SXSW) festival was a pivotal point in Twitters popularity. During the event, Twitter usage increased from 20,000 tweets per day to 60,000.
38. Twitter had 400,000 tweets posted per quarter in 2007.
39. In 2008 there were only 3 million registered users and only 1.25 million tweets per day.
40. In 2009 Twitter had 8 million registered users.
41. From 8 employees in 2008 to over 400 employees in 2011.
42. Top 3 countries: US (107.7 million), Japan (29.9 million) and Brazil (33.3 million).
43. It took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day to tweet to the billionth Tweet.
44. Today it only takes one week for users to send a billion Tweets.
45. In March 2010 the average number of tweets people sent per week was 350 million. In February 2011 the average number of tweets people sent per day was 140 million.
46. The most popular Twitter user by number of followers is Lady Gaga. She has more than 18 million followers. She gains followers faster than Twitter adds new accounts.
47. When Michael Jackson died (June 25 2009) there were 456 tweets per second (a record-breaker for its time).
48. The current tweets per second record is 6,939 tweets per second. This was set 4 seconds after midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day.
49. On March 12, 2011, 572,000 new accounts were created on that one day.
50. The average number of new accounts per day created in February 2011 was 460,000.
51. The number of mobile users have increased by 182% over the past year.
52. There are an estimated 225 million users in March 2011.
53. In 2010, 25 billion tweets sent and 100 million new accounts were added on Twitter.
54. The first unassisted off-Earth Twitter message was posted from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut T. J. Creamer on 22^nd January 2010.
55. 92% Reweet due to interesting content.
56. 64% access through Twitter.com. 10% through Twitter client. 16% through mobile application.
57. 69% decide who to follow through suggestions from their friends.
58. The most Tweeted sports moment (and superbowl moment) of all time… @TimTebow game winning Touchdown pass to beat Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs.
59. Twitter is ranked as one of the ten most visited websites.
60. Tweets are mostly conversational (38%) and pointless babble (40%).
61. Demographics of Twitter users: 54% female. 53% no kids. Users range from incomes of £0-30k (17%) to over £100k (30%).  41.5% are aged 18-39.
62. Twitter is approaching 500 Million Users – Estimated to reach this in 8 days, 7 hours.
63. Currently, Twitter is growing at over 1.123 million accounts per day, which amounts to more than 13 new accounts per second.
64. In the 5 years since launching it has attracted significant investment funds with an estimated total capital raising of over $1.3 billion. The most significant investment was Digital Sky Technology in August, 2010, which was at over $800 million.
65. In June 2011, it was announced that Twitter would be embedded in the new Apple mobile operating system. After the launch of the new Apple mobile iOS5 operating system, Twitter registered sign ups had increased by 300% per day.
66. 60% of new users are coming from outside the U.S.
67. 10 tweets per second mention Starbucks.
68. IBM can predict wait times at airports by crowdsourcing information from tweets. They search tweets for mentions of airports, then send an @reply to the tweeters and ask them to reply with wait times.
69. Scientists can tell with great accuracy where you are from just by the words you use in your tweets.
70. People are more inclined to Tweet something negative than positive. 80% of customer service tweets are negative.
71. Every public tweet since Twitter’s inception in March 2006 will be archived digitally at the Library of Congress. IBM plans to map every archived tweet to Wikipedia, and tag it with sentiment, to make them more digestible.
72. Twitter has been valued at $8 billion.
73. 85% of recruiters use Twitter for recruitment.
74. 81% of users follow less than 100 people.
75. 61% of all tweets are in English.
76. 5% of users create 75% of the content
77. 75% of traffic comes from outside of the Twitter interface.
78. 66% of questions asked have some commercial intent.
79. I started using Twitter in 2008 and currently have 58,572 followers
80. I have spent a record 4 hours on Twitter in one day…
    
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