Twitter.com Is Still the Most Popular Twitter Client - TweetDeck a Distant Second
Twitter's own homepage is still the most popular tool for users to update their status on Twitter. Around 46% of all updates are made directly on the site. Social media analytics and monitoring service Sysomos analyzed 500 million tweets it collected over the past 5 months and found that TweetDeck is the most popular third-party client. TweetDeck has a comfortable lead with a 8.48% share of the market, followed by Tweetie, Twitterific and Seesmic.
Update: There was a mistake in Sysomos' report. Twitter.com's share actually grew slightly from 45.7% in June to 46.7%. We apologize for the confusion.
Compared to Sysomos' last study of Twitter clients in June, Twitter.com's share fell from 55% to 46%. As Twitter's growth is slowing down, these numbers make a lot of sense. New users tend to use Twitter's web interface at first and then migrate to a third-party client. If Twitter.com's market share among Twitter clients is dropping, then this can be seen as a strong indication that the number of new signups is going down as well.
TweetDeck: The Client of Choice for Active Twitter Users
TweetDeck doesn't just have the largest number of users, it is also the tool of choice for the most active Twitter users. Sysomos analyzed the number of tweets posted by active users based on their primary Twitter application. On average, TweetDeck users send out 1.24 tweets per day, followed by Seesmic users (1.18 tweets/day) and HootSuite (1.11 tweets/day). Users of all the other popular clients like Tweetie, Twhirl and Twitterific update their status less than once a day. Those who prefer Twitter's own web interface only send out 0.67 tweets per day.
How Many Clients Do You Use?
Sysomos also analyzed how many third-party clients Twitter users normally use. Looking at active Twitter users only - those with at least 50 tweets in the last 5 months - the study found that 82% only used a single application. 14% used two applications, 2.35% used three and then the numbers drop off quickly. Only 0.01% of all active users used 6 or more clients. Chances are that a lot of active users use different mobile and desktop clients (Tweetie on the iPhone and Seesmic on the desktop, for example). This would explain why quite a large number of users use two clients.
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I guess that puts me in the 0.01% of the least decisive Twitter users.
Interesting insight. I really expect to see Gravity in the reports of coming months.
I'm curious, did they leave out some clients? Or lump automated things like twitterfeed into "Other"?
My analysis (on a random sample of about 1.5M tweets/day - http://tweetstats.com/twitter_stats ) shows that twitterfeed accounts for 8.7% of updates and API (clients specifying no source) at 7.2%.
Its a new dawn and i just thought i share this with everyone. As a migrant from Africa , i sometime get home sink and look at pictures of the good time we had back then. I will turn on the tv at times to see news from the land but its kind of mis-representing the image of the continent, which brings me to the new online streaming service that is going to offered by AfricanTV24 that will stream live feeds from African tv station.
Africa has 54 countries, each country has about 5 local TV stations broadcasting news, sport, music, local programs etc. all you hear when you are out of Africa is other peoples views. Skip the hearsay, visit http://www.africantv24.com watch African TV as it is broadcast. No middle men, no more 2nd hand news. Don’t be a third party listener, watch African TV live as its broadcast.
I tried clients and found they simply added screen clutter. It's all too easy to KISS and add a tab in the browser or, even, add a quickie bookmark on the browser toolbar for quick access to Twitter. That's MY reason for sticking with the twitter.com method. Efficiency. No need for any other "bells and whistles".
@Damon We did look at Twitterfeed, and it does contribute a lot. It is however not a Twitter user client, and hence was grouped in Other.
Nilesh Bansal
www.sysomos.com
This actually may not be an accurate study.
You see when developers use the API, by default it puts the "Web" as the source. You used to be able to specify this by registering an application with Twitter, but this went by the way side when they introduced Open ID. However, a majority of developers still do not use Open ID, because its not practical and impossible to use in some situations, like background cron jobs or automated scripts.
So, when this study was made, they are checking the source for tweets, which is not set by the majority of applications that are sending tweets to twitter.
I am not saying that the overall study is flawed, just that the numbers are, and that the Twitter.com numbers are going to be off because they are getting credit for some tweets sent in from API and not really on Twitter.com
Great post overall, interesting to see the client percentages.
contains api access?
I was using tweet deck but I like twitbird pro much much better try twitbird then we will say what's better
I have long been torn between Tweet Deck and Tweetie and even paid for Tweetie even though TweetDeck is free. This is great news and may but Tweet Deck over the top for me. I manage 5 accounts and the column view is just an amazing innovation. Thanks for the update!
Now that twitter has started to roll out new features (that take time to be incorporated into clients like TweetDeck) I expect that the use of the twitter client will rise.
I found I was moving between computers quite a bit, and found it frustrating to have to change settings, list etc. This propted my move to the web based client peoplebrowsr. But I am always looking to make sure it is keeping up with the other clients. That said, they all seem to be much the same offerings these days anyway.
I use a lot Tweetdeck mainly in its Iphone application for search and consultation, then Hootsuite too for the very same reasons. To write tweets and reply the website is my preferred, to retweet I used hoopsuite, but now there is RT in the website too...
Am amazed that you can use this as an app on the iphone though i have not seen it available in london. Also i did not realise that is is hard to browse london escorts on the iphone , wheather its me being duft and its in the settings or i will need to change the keyword term ESCORTS and see what that brings up....
With a new wave of techinology like hand held divices , apps that help us watch tv say ( www.AfricanTV24.com) would be and added bonus and a welcome for the masses
With a new wave of techinology like hand held divices , apps that help us watch tv say www.AfricanTV24.com would be and added bonus and a welcome for the masses