Study of Twitter messages finds that 40% of tweets are "pointless"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8204842.stm

Study of Twitter messages finds that 40% of tweets are "pointless"

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest.
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This study couldn't exactly be said to have "value", could it?

i have no opinion on this

those dubbed "pointless babble" were of the "I'm eating a sandwich" type.

I read while I was eating eating a sandwich btw.

Veggie sausage and ketchup fyi.

Given a choice, I'd rather read that someone I know is eating a sandwich, than recycled news links I can find for myself on google. The latter seem more pointless to me.

Sorry, that might have sounded like I was having a go at the premise of this thread. I meant recycled news links on Twitter not here.

So the same piece of information could be read several different ways depending on how it's presented?

Babble: I am eating a sandwich
Conversation: @masonicboom I am eating a sandwich
Information of Value: RT @masonicboom I am eating a sandwich

Spam: I am eating a spam sandwich

so ppl use Twitter the same way they talk? shocker

this thread just made me hungry

Sorry, that might have sounded like I was having a go at the premise of this thread. I meant recycled news links on Twitter not here.

― dubmill, Monday, 17 August 2009 12:48 (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Hey, it's reverse inverted infinite feedback on this thread!

it was great the other day when everyone put a tag on their twitter about how they love the NHS even though many of them love it less than eggs and they didn't put #iloveegg on their twitter

aaaahhh what does that even mean?

there should be a study on what percentage of news articles are pointless!

I have used the #ILoveEggs tag. Hopefully we can popularise it.

Eggs VS. NHS poll now.

It's like Daddy or Chips all over again.

Janet Street Porter on people who use Twitter: "twats"!!!

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/janet-street-porter/editoratlarge-twitter-ye-not-for-it-will-not-change-the-world-1772833.html

they're shoulda just twittered their findings

Is 40% that bad a ratio?

I mean, 60%, but either way really.

I was expecting it to be much more than 40%. Mods should get them to work out the percentage for ILX...

(xxxpost) wasn't JSP dead set against the internet as well? I recall an interview she gave a while back where she said that t'net was just somewhere where "geeks could download grainy pictures of Pamela Anderson" or something like that.

Twitter panders to all that is shallow and narcissistic in our society, reducing lives and experiences (like childbirth and death) to missives that last even less than the average British male's attempts at foreplay.

I think the rubbish sex is making her cranky.

those Hungarians put us to shame, gotta be said

I bet she was writing the same challops 1o years ago when texting was the latest threat to civilaisation as we know it.

twitter really kind of is awful, but even worse is people who study it and write about it

if it's a waste of time, don't waste your time saying it's a waste of time...

http://feministing.com/imageStorage/deepthoughts.jpg

http://www.globalgallery.com/prod_images/600/esc-e6.jpg

http://www.bibi.org/box/2004/novembro/escher_hands.jpg

what is the sound of one hand twittering?

Research has shown that studies are pointless, life moves on regardless.

I mean, shit, what the fuck does it matter? Life is pretty much "pointless". It'd be so tiring to only do "worthwhile" things. Excuse while I go suspend my account and devote my life to the study of twitter.

I've seen the name Twitter mentioned here a lot, but I still haven't found out what exactly it is... People post messages there, and others can read them? Is it like Facebook?

Can you comment the messages? Is it like a message board? What do people use it for?

Hey Tuomas, have you heard of this great new thing called Google? Or Wikipedia?
Or you could actually tweet it!

I could actually what?

I'm sure Wikipedia will have some formal description of this thing, but I was wondering if people here who actually use it could tell me what it's for?

I might actually get a Twitter account just to make a bunch of "no seriously, what is this" tweets.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

(xpost) I've already got you beat - I have a Twitter account already, and I've never used it. The only person I'm following is Ned Raggett.

(xxpost) OK, imagine a version of ILX where each person has their own individual board that only they can post to. Also the messages can only be a maximum of 160 characters long.

my username on twitter is "thisissolame" does that make me cool?

So it's like Facebook but only with the status updates? What do people need this for when Facebook exists?

i can't wait for tuomas to ask us to spell out every little fuckin detail about it like we're hoarding a cache of precious gold

you should ask that on twitter

They don't need it. They like it and use it.

xp

why i hate twitter and salon, in one handy package

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/08/15/twitter_addiction/index.html

Is there some siginificant difference to Facebook that makes people use it?

(x-post)

free candy

Results 1 - 10 of about 994,000 for twitter "i don't get it". (0.49 seconds)

Also, why are the messages limited to 140 characters? Wouldn't that hinder any proper discussion?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_link

it's exactly the same as facebook tuomas. but facebook now has a lot of stuff on it that people got bored of so twitter is new and it only has one thing that you do on it. in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is and then in about a year's time it will have additional features that makes it overly bloated or a gastly design change, or it stays the same and everyone gets bored of it, and everyone will go on to use a new thing to express themselves on the internet about 6 months after a few people have been using it and then 6 months later journalists will get onto it and talk about how great/stupid this new thing is

also, msgs longer than 160 have a diminishing text-to-free-candy ratio

Top Finnish Twitter users: http://wefollow.com/twitter/finland

Also, why are the messages limited to 140 characters

Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications.

tuomas... seriously...

So basically Twitter is like Facebook reduced to status updates, except that they can be only 140 characters long? I guess that's not for me then, I like properly fleshed out comments and hate text messages.

also the more followers you get, the more free candy you accumulate

I don't think you should be sending hate text messages.

So this thread has been informative to me, now I know I don't need to join this thing. Thanks everyone!

de nada

what is facebook?

tuomas there is actually more to it than that but i don't feel like explaining it to you as if you were a fuckin child

it's like twitter but with shitty quiz results xp

why are the results shitty? can they not just design better quizzes?

"shitty quiz"

results

tuomas, twitter is like textmessaging all your friends (or people you follow) the same message. vice versa, you can read a message the person you follow has posted to all his followers. that's sort of what twitter is. it has of course different settings and whatnot. (like being able to lock your account to a private status so only your followers can read it, noone else)

and then you have to eat it.

i have enjoyed this thread immensely.

Also, why are the messages limited to 140 characters? Wouldn't that hinder any proper discussion?

― Tuomas, Monday, August 17, 2009 12:00 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^ he really should have padded this statement out to more than 97 characters

RT @tuomas I'm dumb!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt4G95vB5mE