Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective

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Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective

by Guest Author on October 5, 2009

This is a guest post by Robert J. Moore , the CEO and co-founder of RJMetrics , a on-demand database analytics and business intelligence startup that helps online businesses measure, manage, and monetize better. He was previously a venture capital analyst and currently serves as an advisor to several New York startups. Robert blogs at The Metric System and can be followed on Twitter at @RJMetrics .

A few weeks ago, my former employer led a $100 million investment into Twitter and I must admit that I was quite jealous of my former colleagues. Chances are they got the opportunity to do some very cool analytics on Twitter's data.

Rather than wonder about what I missed, I decided to figure out what I could from the outside looking in. Using some statistical trickery, the Twitter API, and my RJMetrics dashboard, I uncovered a ton of astonishing new information about Twitter. Here are some highlights:

Twitter's user growth is no longer accelerating. The rate of new user acquisition has plateaued at around 8 million per month.

Over 14% of users don't have a single follower, and over 75% of users have 10 or fewer followers.

38% of users have never sent a single tweet, and over 75% of users have sent fewer than 10 tweets.

1 in 4 registered users tweets in any given month.

Once a user has tweeted once, there is a 65% chance that they will tweet again. After that second tweet, however, the chance of a third tweet goes up to 81%.

If someone is still tweeting in their second week as a user, it is extremely likely that they will remain on Twitter as a long-term user.

Users who joined in more recent ...

Original URL

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/twitter-data-analysis-an-investors-perspective/#

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/05/twitter-data-analysis-an-investors-perspective/#