Twitter Twebounds... a bit

I have been keeping half an eye out for the follow-up to last month's Twitter numbers, and this morning I got 'em. It looks like the phenom is picking up the pace again, but they're still well off their growth rate from earlier this year. Numbers for June indicate a growth rate of 16.57%. I'm not sold on the idea that Twitter is going to regain its previously staggering growth rates, but I also don't think they will stagnate completely anytime soon. Despite its somewhat limited usefulness, it's still a fascinating tool with incredible potential when used in the right way. I'll hold off drawing conclusions as to what is going on over there until I've seen another month's worth of numbers.

Twitter Twops?

It has been six months since my last post, but I finally found something worth blabbering about. Why so long? The main reason is that the primary topic of my blog - AAA NCNU's social learning project - was shut down. With that gone, I couldn't think of anything else that I actually wanted to talk about. Those who know me personally know that I'm not exactly loquacious. But that's all beside the point. This morning I heard about Twitter's growth slowdown, and just had to put in my two cents.

According to that post, Twitter's growth in May 2009 suddenly plummeted from the phenomenal growth they had been experiencing (76.8% from February to March, 1382% annually) to a mere 1.47% from April to May. Growth, in this case, is measured by comparing the number of unique visitors to the site. And while people are still spending time on Twitter, this indicates that the site may have finally hit its plateau. I'm very curious as to what will happen over the next couple of months, but I can't help but wonder if the potential tweeters of the world have now all been tapped.

My feeling is this: Twitter is really only useful to a particular audience. That audience consists of Internet power users who have a constant connection to the Internet, who honestly believe they have something valuable to share, and who don't mind sorting through dozens to hundreds of other people's posts every day. Obviously, that is a finite audience. Sure, Twitter is cool, but it's definitely not for everyone. There are a lot of bloggers within the social learning space who would argue at this point that I just don't get it, and that almost everyone should be using Twitter. I disagree. Twitter is just a tool, and like any other tool, it is not necessarily useful to everyone.

Profile done

I finished our social technographics profile yesterday. The results surprised me, but in a different way than they were surprising me the other day.

Survey Recipients: 631			Responses: 227… (36%)
Category	Respondents	Percentage	U.S. Norm	Index
Creators	51	22.5%	21%	107
Critics	70	30.8%	37%	83
Collectors	54	23.8%	19%	125
Joiners	81	35.7%	35%	102
Spectators	183	80.6%	69%	117
Inactives	37	16.3%	25%	65

Two things jumped out at me. One is the low level of Inactives. I thought for sure that number would be above the U.S. average. The other is the high level of Collectors. I have no idea where that comes from, and may have to do a deeper dive to determine why the number is 25% higher than the national average. On the other hand, 23.8% still isn't very high.

Another interesting result from the survey was the response to the question "Have you ever contributed to or edited a wiki?" Not a single person answered yes.

Compile, analyze, re-combine, re-analyze

Today is the day I pull the results of our social technographics survey and analyze them. I'm a little nervous about the results, but anxious to get it done. Off to work!

Profiling update

I took a brief look at the raw results from our internal social technographics survey yesterday. The results are not what I expected, but in retrospect I suppose they make sense. At first glance it appears that while we have an large population of spectators within the organization, the population of creators is extremely small. However, the population of joiners is also pretty high - almost as high as the spectator population.

Next week I am going to do a deeper analysis of the results and write up an internal white paper on my findings. I anticipate that these first impressions will hold true upon taking a closer look. My biggest concern is that we may have to drastically rethink our approach if those results are accurate.

There be Progress

Today I released our internal social technographics survey out into the wild. Well, sort of. I actually sent it off to our University administration team so that they could send it out from their "official" AAA University mailbox. They haven't done that yet, but I should be seeing it within a couple hours or so. I'm a little nervous about the level of participation we will receive, and how people will react to the wording of the e-mail announcement, but I'm sure it will all work out.

Our funding got put on hold for a couple of weeks (after it was already approved and stamped) while we await another round of approval from a committee of folks from our parent department. I anticipate we will make it through that without much trouble, though. If we do make it through the committee I will have a decision to make on another matter. One of the project team members has thus far failed to attend any of our meetings, and I have located - purely by accident - a volunteer from the same college who would like to get more involved. I don't want to step on anyone's toes by switching the team members, but I really need the participation. I don't know; we'll see what happens.

Whoops!

I was sitting here reading the blog of an old friend, and all of a sudden an Outlook reminder popped up. Apparently I have another Web 2.0 project meeting in 4 minutes. One would think that I would be keenly aware of when these meetings are (after all, I scheduled them), but this one I completely forgot about. It was one of those "Oh, crap!" moments. Good thing we have hardly anything to talk about today.