The Top Twitter Client Is Still the Web
According to a new study from social media solutions provider Rapleaf, the most popular Twitter client is the web. After looking at the 20 most recent tweets from over 4 million Twitter users, it was clear that updating your status online via Twitter.com is still the dominant way that most people use Twitter, with 65% of tweets attributed to this method. As far as the third-party clients go, only a small handful of clients had enough users to warrant their own slice of the pie chart, and those slices were in the single digits.
Besides the web, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of Twitter updates, the second most popular way to update Twitter.com is via text message. However, with 6% of tweets sent, this method only accounts for 1/10th as many tweets. Behind text messages, the next two methods are the mobile web and TweetDeck, the Adobe AIR application which allows for groups, searches, and Facebook connectivity in its columnar interface. Both of these accounted for 4% of tweets each. Next came the mobile clients, where iPhone apps proved popular. TwitterFon came in with 3% of tweets, the Blackberry app TwitterBerry had 2%, the iPhone app Twitterific also had 2%, and Tweetie had 2%. However, Tweetie, is both a Mac desktop application and iPhone app, so it's hard to tell how much of their piece of the pie comes from each platform. All other Twitter clients combined accounted for 12% of tweets.
The reason the list shapes up this way is because Twitter clients have significant long-tail distribution, reports Rapleaf. The top 5 clients account for 82% of the tweets while the top 10 account for over 90% of tweets. In total, the study of the 4 million users found over 1900 Twitter clients in use.
Also of note is how popular Twitter is as a mobile application. Nearly 20% of tweets are sent from PDAs or mobile phones.
Changes from Last Year
Last year, here at ReadWriteWeb, we ran our own poll. Although we didn't look at 4 million users as Rapleaf did, we did capture data on 37,248 tweets - a significant enough number to draw some conclusions. Still, since the sample sizes differ, we cannot definitively compare the two polls to each other; we can only observe some general trends.
The first thing that we saw when looking at last year's results is that IM, which accounted for 8% of tweets at that time, doesn't even register on Rapleaf's poll. It's possible that each individual IM client didn't account for a significant enough number of users to warrant a piece of the pie in the Rapleaf chart, but we would be interested in seeing the numbers combined for all the IM clients they tracked to see if there has been a change.
Last year, we saw texting at 5% and Rapleaf says they see 6% of tweets coming in through this method. This consistency is interesting because it seems to imply that Twitter's new users aren't updating their status via SMS more than they're using apps and the web.
We also see several clients which have fallen off the list, including the once-popular AIR app Twhirl which now seems to have lost out to TweetDeck. The Firefox add-on TwitterFox also didn't make Rapleaf's list even though it registered on ours last year with 2% of tweets. Twitterrific, though, remains popular, although it dropped from 7% last year to 2% on Rapleaf's list.
However, in our poll too, the web still dominated with 56% of tweets. These days, despite the growing number of third-party clients available, it's surprising to see that this number has climbed even higher. Perhaps that's because Twitter is now attracting a greater number of "mainstream" users who don't know about things like AIR applications or Firefox add-ons?
Comparisons with Other Studies
It's also interesting to compare Rapleaf's data with the data collected by Twitstat. They looked at 41,516 unique user/client connections over the course of 7 days, then repeated the process to observe the churn rates.
Although they also see the web as the dominant client, they have TweetDeck at #2, twitterfeed at #3, Tweetie at #4, and twhirl at #5. Besides the number 1 spot, that's a much different list. Those differences continue as you delve further into the top 10, where clients like HootSuite, TwitPic, and Ping.fm are mentioned.
Which study is more accurate? While Rapleaf looked at more tweets overall, the Twitstat study's sample is also large enough to not be discounted. So what do all the differences mean? Perhaps it just means that there are so many clients in use today, it's hard to really get a handle on which ones are the most popular at any given time. One thing it does show, however, is that there's one client that reigns supreme no matter how many tweets you sample. It looks like the real winner here is the web.
Share
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
I am unsurprised!
Posted by: Daniel J. Pritchett
|
August 19, 2009 9:10 AM
Twitstat only track tweets from accounts who follow @twitstat (explained in their methodology). And who is most inclined to follow them (and introduce biais in their stats) ? Twitter client app developers of course ;)
Some clients claim >5% (or >10%) market share based on the twitstat report, and these 3rd party twitter dev know too well how to make it favorable to them.
"Which study is more accurate?"
> I think you have your answer
No need to wonder:
The iPhone has not the huge distribution that we may think, not even including the iPod touch with similar capabilities. The apps are just a share of that relatively small iPhone/iPod owner universe. Same for the smartphones.
But we will of course see fast increasing distribution of smartphones amongs consumers which may boost twitter app usage (or will bring other things alltogether).
This study doesn't surprise me. But while most people use the Web to update Twitter, as many studies have been said before, the majority of tweets are from something like 5 percent of power users.
I don't know any power users who use the Web to tweet, so even though most people tweet with the Web, most tweets are clearly not updated with the Web. I think it's an important distinction.
From what I've seen most people don't have huge lists nor do they make heavy use of twitter search; they don't need desktop clients like TweetDeck. They also are at least as likely to tweet from home (i.e. at a computer) as they are to tweet on the go. (Reposting comment to make the RWW sync pick up my addendum)
Posted by: Daniel J. Pritchett
|
August 19, 2009 10:21 AM
Thanks Jon, good info!
Curious - I'd like to know what's the difference between Tweet and Update... as Craig Kanalley defines it. Whenever I Tweet, I do it on Web by clicking a button labeled, Update.
not surprising, although that does open alot of doors and opportunity for 3rd party apps to come and get a piece of the pie. However, Developers are eager to see Twitter improve platform stability http://www.trigeia.com/article.php?id=73403
@trigeia
I use Twhirl and what I find funny, is that of the roughly 200 or so people I follow, I see only a handful using the web to post their tweet. Most updates are coming from tweetdeck, uber twitter, twhirl, and others. Maybe it's just my view of it. I try to push people into using a 3rd party app since they are so much more robust than the web interface.
The reason why IM didn't show up on this year's charts is because Twitter shut down its XMPP gateway last May after the first gigantic load spike; any tweet "from IM" was one that came through that gateway. Chances are if an IM client provides Twitter support, it's doing so through the API and is probably going to be counted under its own source parameter or "from API."
I have no idea what this counts as, but i use twitterbar because i saw it in firefox addons and when i installed it it took me to a page which explained how to use it. Most addons fail at that point - i can't figure out how to use them and they're too cool to explain. I find it very annoying that i can't comment on a link i'm posting, but i don't know how to use anything else except their website, and why do i want to go there? Have friendfeed.
I think people use the web alot because they don't want to have to download Adobe Air, then download their twitter app (most desktop apps run on Air).
I created CrowdLens so that users could login from everywhere, and pick up right where they left off (Crowdlens automatically marks tweets as read, so you can pick up where you left off).
I also tried to improve the user experience by including keyboard shortcuts, expanding short urls, display inline image previews, etc.
If you usually access twitter through the web, give us a try!
-Nick
http://www.crowdlens.com
Check out this blog dedicated to the latest Twitter apps and reviews:
http://alltwitterapps.com