What's Happening With Twitter?

By all accounts, Twitter is still one of the hottest Social Media platforms to be connected on, even as its growth begins to slow.

That was the news on Tuesday via eMarketer in their news item, Twitter Stays Strong as Growth Slows. "Twitter usage exploded in 2009," begins the news item. "US site traffic, which is only a partial barometer of how many people used the service, grew from a few million unique monthly visitors in early 2009 to over 20 million by June. Traffic has since reached a plateau, but other usage metrics continue to show high levels of engagement in early 2010… eMarketer estimates there will be 26 million US adult Twitter users in 2010, up 44.4% over last year. By 2012 nearly one-fifth of Web users, or 36 million people, will be on Twitter."

Here are some more Twitter stats to fill your strategy decks with:

• In April 2010, Twitter reported it had nearly 106 million registered accounts worldwide.
• The U.S. accounts for about 40% of users.
• Unique visits to Twitter have plateaued since early 2009.

Who is using Twitter most?

According to the full report, Twitter: A Strong Current in the Social Media Mainstream, by eMarketer senior analyst, Paul Verna, Twitter is still a very sticky platform with the more vocal content coming from the longtime members. This was further substantiated earlier in April 2010 by Sysomos in their own Social Media research report (more on that here: eMarketer – Longtime Twitter Users Most Vocal and here: Sysomos Blog – Twitter Enjoys Major Growth and Excellent Stickiness).

As growth slows will the appeal of Twitter die down too?

It’s too early to tell, but the idea of enabling people to communicate in a short and simple way that can be broadcasted to the world is not going to grow tired any time soon. Marketers tend to focus too much on the tool or delivery mechanism over the ramifications of what the platform does to change media and the society it serves. These are amazing times, and Twitter is one of the amazing platforms that allow us to stay connected and share information (from the fascinating to the banal) in near real-time.

Twitter is still happening. In fact, everything we’re seeing on Twitter is probably just the beginning of something much bigger and even more impactful. Wouldn’t you agree?