Twitter usage leapt to 1000% over the past year and, for the the first time, it has overtaken Digg. Meanwhile, in the US, the Presidential Race has added even more tweets.
Since its creation as a research and development project inside San Francisco podcasting company Odeo in March 2006, Twitter has been making great strides, but it wasn’t until January this year that it got its first real scoop – the first pictures of downed US Airways flight 1549.
In addition to President Obama helping to promote it as part of his publicity machine (Twitter use increased 43% on Election Day), the UK has seen Twitter leap from 2,953rd most popular web site in the UK in 2008 to 291st.
Though Twitter’s recent success is quite impressive, the service still has some way to go to challenge other social networking sites like Facebook, which already holds 38% of all internet hits; that’s twice YouTube’s hits and four times Bebo, its nearest rival.
“Twitter receives the largest amount of its traffic from the USA, but its penetration is greater in the UK market,” said Hitwise’s research director, Robin Goad. “The US may overtake the UK the week following the surge in Tweets during Barack Obama’s inauguration. The new American President is already the most followed person on Twitter, with over 144,000 followers.”
Sure, you could follow President Obama’s Twitter, but for the really important stuff, it’s best to stick to the Watercooler.
