Thanks – good article!

Couple of thoughts:

1) My experience is similar to other Twitter users who’ve shared they signed up and then went dormant for awhile (with me it was at least 6 months). The reason for my inactivity wasn’t that I was unable to find people I knew or liked. I was just busy doing other stuff, and really didn’t know what I wanted to *do* with my account. It took a catalyst to get me moving (my former boss sent me a follow invite – ironically, now he’s dormant).

Point being, we may want to do some basic market research to determine the actual lifecycle of an average peep before we say we have a retention problem. When you have a lot of people taking advantage of a free service, a 40% retention rate may or may not be unwarranted. Many successful direct selling companies I’ve worked with over the years sport new recruit retention rates anywhere from 35%-45%. People join, they leave to do something else and they flow in and out for years at their leisure. Maybe not unlike Twitter.

The way I see it, Twitter will grow two ways: First, by geographic penetration and then by increased productivity (more peeps being more active at any given time).

2.Interestingly, only a couple of my followers are people I knew before Twitter – and they’re not really active. I did use the recommended follow list to find CNN and a couple other news sites and commentators. Another initial follow was Michael Hyatt who sent a very helpful link for beginners, which was critical to my understanding of how to use Twitter and build a following (I’d already been reading his blog for a couple years, so I knew to look for him).

That said, I do like and support the idea that Twitter provide a more robust platform for people to find and follow relevant tweeps. And based on what I’ve been reading from Twitter, etc., I believe it’s coming soon.

Thanks again for a terrific article!

Jenifer
@jenajean

Twitter is a free online social media networking. It is provide lot of information and lot of online friends.

Twitter has gained extensive notability and popularity worldwide.

Thanks for the information.

Cheer’s,
john
http://www.ibp4seo.com/IBP-Free-Download.html

After both my sisters joined, added the 20 or so suggested ‘follows’ and then stuck in the mud I realized that I’d had a very distinct advantage when I joined Twitter–dozens of other online marketing and UX industry contacts who’d already joined and who had well developed ‘Friends’ lists. I was able to add a couple of colleagues, spin through their lists of ‘Follow’s, find others I knew or that I’d wanted to know, then gone through the Friends of THOSE new contacts…and so on and so on.

Finding other non-industry friends and neighbours has been much more difficult and I completely understand the abandonment rate at this point. If you can’t find anyone to connect with in a meaningful way on a social network then why bother?

I use Twitter to converse and network and learn and honestly find that I’ve nearly abandoned iGoogle and my Reader account in favour of perusing links posted in Tweets–it’s completely changed my online behaviour in just a couple of short months–but until Twitter finds a better way of connecting and engaging users I also fear it will never really make it out of the gate.

As you said in your book, search is the interface between the human world and the Web; just like the tires are the interface between the car and the road. Buy cheap shoddy tires, and that interface may not last long…

Social media providers must make it easy for incoming networkers to understand the terrain, and the way to navigate it through search, joining groups, finding directories, etc. Otherwise, these people give up in frustration.

I opened a facebook account about a month ago. I haven’t done anything with it – because I don’t know what to do. I have had to borrow a library book to find out.

Same with Twitter. The joining interface is simple – too simple! For two weeks I thought “what do I do with this Twitter homepage?” I had to spend hours of valuable time scouring the Internet to find clues.

I finally found “Twitter Power” by Joel Comm, a tremendous book that has catapulted me right into Twitterdom.

Why can’t Twitter provide the clues?

Come on geeks, there are real humans out there! If you don’t know how to do it, hire me to show them the way!

Cheers,
Gerald
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.ScienceOfLife.co.nz
http://www.twitter.com/gezz_nz