Twitter’s Future Unpredictable as Active Use Slows

What does Twitters future actually look like?  Unlike stability you may see in Facebook based on their quarterly earnings, Twitter isn’t looking so hot soon after their largely anticipated IPO.  Last week Twitter share holders took a massive hit as news was released on the current user growth and activity.  Over the past three weeks Twitter has seen a $14 drop in their share price, bottoming out at $32 at it’s lowest.  What was it that scared everyone? First, lets look at the amount of twitter users.

Statisa released a fantastic graph showing the number of current active twitter users based on the year they were created.  Below you can see almost 25% of the userbase locked down in 2008 is still active on Twitter.  What’s scary is the staggering gap between active and non active users in the years to come.  Fast forward to 2013 only 13% of the accounts created are still actively using their accounts as of February 2014.

Infographic: Does Twitter Have a Stickiness Problem? | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista

Why does Twitter have a stickiness problem?

My thoughts are because of the product use in itself.  I can go days or weeks without being on Twitter.  When I login, I don’t read what I missed, and usually I don’t see much worth reading anyway.  Most of the people I follow are distant acquaintances, news publishers, or personal interest accounts.

Facebook however is a list of only the people I have chosen to be friends with.  Most of the information on Facebook, however mundane it may be, allows me to put a face to the person.  I feel more connected because they are generally someone I’ve met and potentially see a few times a year.  I find myself checking my Facebook account several times a day.

Twitter is turning into the new email, where you’re constantly getting a lot of messages, most are caught by spam, another bunch are just notifications and social annoyances, and the very few are meaningful messages.  The only thing is email is like a mailbox.  Everyone needs to have one no matter how much junk mail you end up getting.

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