Twitter vs. Blogger growth

May 8, 2007 By

I was just reading Kottke’s comparison about Blogger vs. Twitter growth. He points out that Twitter took off on November 21, 2006 (Twitter’s growth curve started going straight up on that day, when compared with Blogger). Hmmm, what’s the date on my post where I first talked about Twitter again? Yeah, November 20, 2006. :-)

The other inflection point? March 11, 2007. I again wrote about Twitter in early March. When was that? March 5, 2007.

Now, what you don’t see is that I am just good at seeing doubling effects. That’s why I read so many feeds. So when something is about to get important I’ll run to the front of the parade and act like I’m leading the parade. Heheh.

Really, the high growth in March was due to Leo Laporte talking about it on his show.

Filed Under: 1

  • Pingback: Twitter = a bunch of arse? « Si Quando Dubium, Illic Est Scilicet

  • http://absono.us whitneymcn

    You don’t think that it was the buzz coming from SXSW as a whole (with the dual 60″ plasmas streaming twitter messages) that was the engine behind the March growth spurt?

  • http://www.blackmailr.com/smr whitneymcn

    You don’t think that it was the buzz coming from SXSW as a whole (with the dual 60″ plasmas streaming twitter messages) that was the engine behind the March growth spurt?

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Nope. The buzz actually got kicked off by Leo Laporte about 10 days before SXSW. Then the Game Developer Conference happened and the buzz was actually happening there. My biggest percentage Twitter follower growth happened right before SXSW.

    SXSW is just where the mainstream press noticed it (and where it accelerated due to mentions on stage, in Ask a Ninja, and other places like the lobby screens).

    The cool kids were already on Twitter before SXSW though. Remember my BBQ at SXSW? I planned that on Twitter and had 30 responses in two minutes BEFORE SXSW.

  • http://scobleizer.com/ Robert Scoble

    Nope. The buzz actually got kicked off by Leo Laporte about 10 days before SXSW. Then the Game Developer Conference happened and the buzz was actually happening there. My biggest percentage Twitter follower growth happened right before SXSW.

    SXSW is just where the mainstream press noticed it (and where it accelerated due to mentions on stage, in Ask a Ninja, and other places like the lobby screens).

    The cool kids were already on Twitter before SXSW though. Remember my BBQ at SXSW? I planned that on Twitter and had 30 responses in two minutes BEFORE SXSW.

  • http://jjesse.wordpress.com/ Jonathan

    So because you wrote about it doubled in size? Wow that’s arrogant.

  • http://jjesse.wordpress.com/ Jonathan

    So because you wrote about it doubled in size? Wow that’s arrogant.

  • anon

    It’s true – I honestly attribute the success of Twitter to Robert and Leo. They said it was cool, everyone tried it out.

    I still think it’s useless. Bloggers, especially A-listers, probably won’t have an issue with thinking they’re important enough to be broadcasting their lives to the world. The concept has been around in IM for the longest time. Sure, Robert doesn’t like IM, but I bet you the majority of people using Twitter never used the same functionality when it was in IM. So, all of a sudden, the Twitter population thinks this the idea of status updates are the greatest thing ever.

    Teens & college kids probably also question the utility. This group (which includes me) most likely grew up with using status updates on IM, and lately on Facebook so they don’t see what all the hype is about. In fact, Facebook & Bebo showed that Twitter is a feature, not a product.

    Now, all that being said, I don’t think Twitter is completely useless. It’s a great solution for blogging at conferences. It can probably be very useful when applied to a close network of people, like family or friends. But best of all, it eliminates crappy, trivial posts from blogs :)

    As an aside, I’d be interested in knowing how much of Twitter’s population weren’t influenced by Robert or Leo to join and aren’t bloggers. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be too surprised at the results.

    Like for Second Life, businesses are merely just jumping on the bandwagon. Honestly, I don’t see what the difference is between BBC’s Twitter page and subscribing to their RSS feeds. If anyone knows any practical business uses or any practical uses at all, please respond.

    Yeah, in case you can’t tell, I hate seeing fluffy products getting tons of attention. But we’re in a bubble, so, of course, we can expect Twitter to be sold for X million(s).

    If you’re curious, I think I first heard of Twitter via Tara Hunt for some sort of movie promotion. When all the cool kids, it just turned into who had the most followers, etc.

  • anon

    It’s true – I honestly attribute the success of Twitter to Robert and Leo. They said it was cool, everyone tried it out.

    I still think it’s useless. Bloggers, especially A-listers, probably won’t have an issue with thinking they’re important enough to be broadcasting their lives to the world. The concept has been around in IM for the longest time. Sure, Robert doesn’t like IM, but I bet you the majority of people using Twitter never used the same functionality when it was in IM. So, all of a sudden, the Twitter population thinks this the idea of status updates are the greatest thing ever.

    Teens & college kids probably also question the utility. This group (which includes me) most likely grew up with using status updates on IM, and lately on Facebook so they don’t see what all the hype is about. In fact, Facebook & Bebo showed that Twitter is a feature, not a product.

    Now, all that being said, I don’t think Twitter is completely useless. It’s a great solution for blogging at conferences. It can probably be very useful when applied to a close network of people, like family or friends. But best of all, it eliminates crappy, trivial posts from blogs :)

    As an aside, I’d be interested in knowing how much of Twitter’s population weren’t influenced by Robert or Leo to join and aren’t bloggers. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be too surprised at the results.

    Like for Second Life, businesses are merely just jumping on the bandwagon. Honestly, I don’t see what the difference is between BBC’s Twitter page and subscribing to their RSS feeds. If anyone knows any practical business uses or any practical uses at all, please respond.

    Yeah, in case you can’t tell, I hate seeing fluffy products getting tons of attention. But we’re in a bubble, so, of course, we can expect Twitter to be sold for X million(s).

    If you’re curious, I think I first heard of Twitter via Tara Hunt for some sort of movie promotion. When all the cool kids, it just turned into who had the most followers, etc.

  • http://www.trendmatcher.nl/ Trendmatcher

    First time I used (not only mentioned) Twitter on my weblog was november 1st. So you took use of quite an incubation period…
    http://www.karssenberg.nl/weblog/2006/11/dienstmededeling-via-twitter.html
    But of course you gave it a good swing! What parade are you running past at the moment? Bottom line: next time tell us in advance and not two month later…

  • http://www.trendmatcher.nl Trendmatcher

    First time I used (not only mentioned) Twitter on my weblog was november 1st. So you took use of quite an incubation period…
    http://www.karssenberg.nl/weblog/2006/11/dienstmededeling-via-twitter.html
    But of course you gave it a good swing! What parade are you running past at the moment? Bottom line: next time tell us in advance and not two month later…

  • http://absono.us whitneymcn

    This info has probably flowed in via other channels, but apparently the data that Kottke was working off of is unreliable:

    http://www.kottke.org/07/05/twitters-not-growing-so-fast-after-all

    Apparently the folks at Twitter are going to be working on some visualizations, so the horse’s mouth version should be available in a couple of weeks.

    Not to say that the new data won’t confirm the power of Scoble and Laporte, of course… :)

  • http://www.blackmailr.com/smr whitneymcn

    This info has probably flowed in via other channels, but apparently the data that Kottke was working off of is unreliable:

    http://www.kottke.org/07/05/twitters-not-growing-so-fast-after-all

    Apparently the folks at Twitter are going to be working on some visualizations, so the horse’s mouth version should be available in a couple of weeks.

    Not to say that the new data won’t confirm the power of Scoble and Laporte, of course… :)

  • http://tech.am/ Mike

    I think it is fair to say that rather than you anticipating the growth of Twitter, were an active part in making it happen. On some occasions, you had Twitter in almost every post you wrote for days, so my guess is that your readers went to the site, signed up, and told their buddies to sign up.

  • http://tech.am Mike

    I think it is fair to say that rather than you anticipating the growth of Twitter, were an active part in making it happen. On some occasions, you had Twitter in almost every post you wrote for days, so my guess is that your readers went to the site, signed up, and told their buddies to sign up.

  • Christopher Coulter

    The bubbles bubble on, bubbled up by professional bubblers, making bubbleish and illogical product comparison datapoints, about bubbled-up adoption rates.

    Well the Silicon Valley bloggers are hip
    I really dig the tech they wear
    And the Twitters with the way they talk
    They knock me out when I’m there

    The RSS feeds really make you feel alright
    And the MySpacers with the way they make friends
    They keep their computers warm at night

    I wish they all could be like…
    I wish they all could be like…
    I wish they all could be like…us.

  • Christopher Coulter

    The bubbles bubble on, bubbled up by professional bubblers, making bubbleish and illogical product comparison datapoints, about bubbled-up adoption rates.

    Well the Silicon Valley bloggers are hip
    I really dig the tech they wear
    And the Twitters with the way they talk
    They knock me out when I’m there

    The RSS feeds really make you feel alright
    And the MySpacers with the way they make friends
    They keep their computers warm at night

    I wish they all could be like…
    I wish they all could be like…
    I wish they all could be like…us.

  • http://jean.wordpress.com/ jean

    the idea of twitter is very simple. very good idea, but what exactly is the purpose.

    now for the growth
    the sudden growth of a website is good but should be taken with caution. if scoble and some of the famous techies stop twittering for quite sometime then twitter will drop in the growth profile. As for blogger it will always continue to grow.

    http://www.irin.co.uk

  • http://jean.wordpress.com/ jean

    the idea of twitter is very simple. very good idea, but what exactly is the purpose.

    now for the growth
    the sudden growth of a website is good but should be taken with caution. if scoble and some of the famous techies stop twittering for quite sometime then twitter will drop in the growth profile. As for blogger it will always continue to grow.

    http://www.irin.co.uk

  • Pingback: links for 2007-05-09 « Social Media Report

  • meanguy

    “surfers congratulating one another for pushing the waves closer to shore”

    http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/02/020507.html

  • meanguy

    “surfers congratulating one another for pushing the waves closer to shore”

    http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2007/02/020507.html