Co-Tweeting Being Pushed Live on Twitter

Co-tweeting is when you have more than one person monitor and respond within a single Twitter account. Recently there have been sightings that Twitter is starting to push a new co-tweeting feature that will identify the author of the Tweet. Twitter is now adding a by-line to the post. So instead of "5:52 PM Mar 3rd via web" you will see "5:52 PM Mar 3rd via web by jennadawn". Some say that this may be a premium feature that Twitter will be providing for their business accounts. By including this co-tweeting feature, business accounts will be able to have a more personal feel. Here is a example from the official @twitter account.

Obessed Twitter Users Check in Day and Night

Retrevo Gadgetology's latest blog post, Is Social Media a New Addiction?, reports some interesting findings from their latest study on how people spend their time on social networks. Some of the highlights of the report:

• 48% of respondents check/update Facebook or Twitter whenever they wake up during the night or as soon as they wake up
• 42% check/update Facebook or Twitter first thing in the morning
• 16% under the age of 25 check Facebook or Twitter as their source for news in the morning
• 15% over the of 25 check Facebook or Twitter as their source for news in the morning

Where Do People Go After They Visit Twitter.com?

Hitwise recently posted, Twitter and News and Media Websites, that took a look at where Twitters go after they visit Twitter.com. The report found that almost sixty percent of them visit another social network (appx. 30%) or an entertainment site (appx. 30%). This was followed by search engines (appx. 7%), lifestyle sites (appx. 5%), news and media sites (appx. 4.5%), portal frontpages (appx. 4%), and then shopping / classifieds, business and finance sites, and email service (all appx. 3.5%). The report also looked at "down stream" visits to media / news sites versus all other categories. Visits to media / news sites increased by 54%, while all other categories increased by 138%.

#OMGConan Hoax Shows Social Irresponsibility

In Daniels Terdiman's latest blog entry, #OMGConan: The big Digg party Twitter Hoax, he writes about the recent hoax that was retweeted across Twitter about Conan O'Brien joining the Internet TV network, Revision3. The hoax was orchestrated  during the South by Southwest Interactive festival as a way to eclispe the biggest Twitter hoax to date, the death of Jeff Goldblum.

I am glad that no traditional media outlets were involved, as their credibility would have dwindlee down to the levels of  TMZ. Any ways, this Twitter hoax clearly displays the power of a few highly influential social indiviudals that have strong online credibility with their followers. With that power comes social responsibility in reporting or sharing information. But when individuals abuse this trust and post rumors or hoaxes, that trust erodes away. Will their followers think twice about retweeting their next tweet due to this hoax?

Twitter Quietly Rolls Out Own URL Shortner

Twitter recently posted, Trust and Safety, a blog entry that discussed the steps they are taken to prevent scams and malicious links on Twitter. This was in response to the recent Barracuda Labs report that showed in October 2009, one in eight accounts created were deemed to be malicious, suspicious, or otherwise misused. But at the end of the Twitter post there is mention that they are going to be redirecting links within Direct Messages and email notifications. It looks like they will be using the URL shortener twt.tl to do this. It seems to be open ended as whether they plan to roll this shortening service out to status updates.

Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, put the Twitter URL shortener to the test to see if the tracking of the originial shorten URL would be lost. He found that there indeed seems to be NO impact.

Over 30 Percent of Twitter Accounts Never Tweet

A new study by Barracuda Networks, dubbed Twitter's Red Carpet Era, took a look at 19 million Twitter accounts to analyze frequency, user interaction, and overall activity of an account. The study produced some interesting stats on how people are using Twitter.

• 34% of Twitter users have not tweeted since they created their account
• 21% of Twitter users are classified as "True Twitter Users" (see study for definition)
• 17% of Twitter users have zero followers
• 36% of Twitter users have more followers than the accounts they are following
• Users with an average of 1000 followers actually tweet the most compared to accounts with less than 100 followers or more than 100,000 followers

The study uses the term "Red Carpet Era" to denote the period between November 2008 and April 2009 when celebrities started to join Twitter. The study shows how the impact of celebrities coming on board helped propell Twitter to a 20% growth rate in April 2009. The average growth of Twitter is about 0.34% per month.

Study Shows Twitter Followers More Likely To Buy

A recent social media usage study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that followers of brands are more likely to recommend the brand as well as buy their products. The study surveyed 1500 consumers (18+ years of age) throughout the United States. The key finds:

• 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend brands that they are following
• 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands that they are following
• Cconsumers believe that brands not engaging in social media are out of touch

Twitter Experiences a 347 Percent Jump via Mobile Browsers

ComScore released a new report today, Facebook and Twitter Access via Mobile Browser Grows by Triple-Digits in the Past Year, that looked at social networking access via mobile browsers. The study found that over 30% of smart phone users had accessed a social network via their mobile browser in January 2010. Twitter  saw almost 4.7 million mobile users access their site in January 2010. This was a 347 percent increase over the same period last year. Twitter still lags behind Facebook (25.1 million) and MySpace (11.4 million). The report also notes that these numbers do not include access from mobile phone users who exclusively use mobile apps. So these numbers may be a bit higher, especially the Twitter numbers.