Twitter Quitters – Much has been made of the Nielsen report which pegged Twitter’s retention rate at only 40%. While even at this retention rate Twitter can still grow for a time, Nielsen pegs its maximum penetration at 10% of the population. Since its publication there has been a lot written questioning the report, with arguments falling primarily into two camps: some believe the measurement is wrong while others think the retention rate will improve. On the measurement side VentureBeat points out that Nielsen only considers the month after signing up which misses a lot of people who may return to the service later – and time lags are to be expected with a new type of service like Twitter which can take a while to make sense even to those versed in social media. Other arguments like this one say retention will improve as the network increases in size and benefits from a network externality, whereby a technology becomes more valuable when ,more people sign up (think fax machines). Conclusion: Twitter should probably spend more time worrying about monetization than retention.
Bonus Twitter Stat (from SociableBlog): Colorado ranks fifth in the percentage of people who Twitter. We’re coming to get you Nevada (4), Oregon (3), Massachusetts (2), and Washington (1).
Biz360 has egg on its face while OneRiot enjoys an omelet: With the social web seen as the next golden goose for strategic marketing firms, one company stepped up to use its sophisticated analytics engine to predict the winner of Wednesday’s American Idol. Widely reported across the media, Biz360 incorrectly predicted Adam Lambert would be the winner over Kris Allen after digitally spelunking blogs, message boards, forums, social networks, twitter and other social media. Boulder-based OneRiot, however, stood virtually alone in accurately predicting the upset using its real-time search platform. Yet OneRiot didn’t merely guess correctly; it also used language in its analysis that anticipated a landslide, whereas Biz360 repeatedly suggested that less than 1% separated the two crooners. The final tally hasn’t been released, but yesterday Access Hollywood reported that according to a Fox Television insider, Allen won by a “large margin.”
