Every month I look at Twitter’s traffic, and for September, the trend continues to be flat to down. Has Twitter peaked, or is it time for the company to start showing us traffic through its API and via SMS, so we can really understand the service’s growth?
Here are Quantcast and Compete’s data.
The embedded chart is from Compete.
While it’s fair to argue they only capture traffic to Twitter.com, it’s still instructive to see that traffic to that particular domain has flattened or fallen off.
Update:
Once again the Compete embedded chart does not show what the page shows, which is a decline in Sept. So here’s that part of it:
I think that compete uses as methodology log of US traffic. Twitter has penetrated in USA and there is a limit.
For example I was surprised to see only 25K uniques monthly estimated for seek.com.au, the leading Australian job website :
http://siteanalytics.compete.com/seek.com.au/
However, compete has tendency to underestimate websites and I think data for australian websites are heavily screwed. It is certainly better than wikipedia.
Americans tend to be twitter fans, but here in Europe people tend to use only Facebook… there is a bit higher possibilities for social interaction. I’ve read somewhere that twitter has only 2-3% of social networking traffic in USA, but it has strong media buzz. Due to good PR I guess.
decline will only exacerbate as they continue to piss off their developer community with lists etc
can not tell if it is a real measure or not,but Twitter is definitely a cool tool.
why did we receive only data made by US companies & from US? Continous growth in Europe, Middle East & Asia seem to be regularly forgotten by analysts… Never mind, I agree that Twitter is a necessary tool
anyone think that Twitter is going to be the next Myspace? extremely popular considering that nobody still uses it. Biz and co. should have taken the $$$$ when they had the chance.
Twitter is a great tool, but is it becoming ‘white noise’? JB lemme know what the next new thing is?
Every business that provides “nice to have” solutions (products/services) are faced with humans that respond to new stimuli. It is imperative for businesses that operate in the “nice to have” space to continually innovate and deliver stimuli that users care about and value. In other words, Twitter can only milk the “as is” state of its solution for so long. Some will naturally drop-off, cause it just wasn’t a fit for them . . . luckily for Twitter a more compelling alternative has yet to surface (yet).
Overall, the “social network” value proposition will need to continue to evolve and nothing in the business world lasts forever, especially if it stays the same.
Timing is such an underestimated factor.
I don’t think this is a meaningful measurement at all. It is so prevalent only because it is so ubiquitous and easy to produce. Can you predict success in life by results of popularity contests in a high school? The traffic statistics even less useful as it is heavily affected by auto bots.
Twitter Continues Flattening, But Is This A Real Measure. Can you predict success in life by results of popularity contests in a high school.
John,
As much as you LOVE social media you cannot stand being a part of a service that is flattening, can you?
All services peak. Google has basically flatlined on traffic for the past two years. AOL is no longer the dominant Internet Service Provider.
Peaks happen. Plateaus happen. What companies need to worry about is whether they are peaking or plateauing.
Looks like search spam has reached deep into the heart of Vietnam. What a shame. It’s such a beautiful country.
Twitter deserves what ever success they have now. Their services are worth it.
Twitter can only milk the “as is” state of its solution for so long. Some will naturally drop-off, cause it just wasn’t a fit for them . . . luckily for Twitter a more compelling alternative has yet to surface.