Twitter a global sensation: Hitwise
Technology ( 11 )
SAN FRANCISCO —
With celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey helping fuel Twitter mania, the micro-blogging website is soaring to stardom around the world, according to Hitwise.
Twitter’s growth in Australia “has been nothing short of phenomenal,” rocketing 1,067% since the start of this year, reported Alan Long, research director at the Internet intelligence gathering firm.
The number of visitors to Twitter has more than tripled in New Zealand since the beginning of the year, and the website shot up 239 ranks in Singapore to score a place among the 50 most popular online destinations in the country.
“In other markets, Twitter has a growth pattern similar to the U.S. and UK, highlighting that Twitter is a truly global phenomenon,” Long said in Hitwise findings.
As of Friday, Twitter’s share of online visits in the United States and Britain had increased by 570% and 621% respectively since the start of the year.
“It is interesting to note that large jumps in share of visits have been sparked by a variety of events and news items at different times over the past three months,” Long wrote.
“But, Ashton Kutcher and Oprah seem to have had an impact in all countries in mid-April.”
U.S. talk show megastar Winfrey made her debut on the micro-blogging service a week ago and attracted more than 125,000 followers in just 24 hours. She now has more than 560,000 followers.
Kutcher, star of the television series “That ‘70s Show” and husband of actress Demi Moore, beat television news network CNN on April 17 in a race to see who could become the first Twitter user to attract one million followers.
Oprah is the latest celebrity to begin using Twitter, which allows users to pepper their followers with messages of a maximum 140 characters.
Other well-known users include British actor and playwright Stephen Fry, NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, Australian actor Hugh Jackman, and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.
Wire reports
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11 Comments
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gogogo
Stupid people they are talking to the celebrities marketing company or agents not the person.
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michelelisa
in reply to gogogo - actually, it depends on the celebrity. Stephen Fry writes his own tweets, among many others. Although I know some celebs' twitter accounts are updated by their PR people, there are quite a few that do it themselves. The hard thing is picking the real celebrities from the fakes.
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soldave
What's Hitwise?
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escape_artist
Twittering doesn't seem healthy, to me. What's with the obsessive urge some have to have to know what's going on every time something happens somewhere to someone else, usually mundane? Is it all really that important? Do these people know how to relax? Doesn't seem like it. Everything seemed to get along just fine before it. Hopefully it's just a fad.
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rebirthrecycle
good question soldave. It means when you hit you should do it wisely.
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helloklitty
I give it six months.
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cloudy2101
It wasn't so long ago that commentators wrote off twitter as next to useless. A few famous names adopt twitter and the whole thing explodes as the next big thing.
Shinjirarenai.
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soldave
rebirthrecycle - Ahhh, so that's my mistake. Before I was hitting things with no forethought. From now on I will hit with as much wisdom as I can. Thanks JT.
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tasha77
Maybe the celebs have an interest in the company (maybe not but just a thought) and by them twittering away the world has gone twitter crazy and if it has gone/goes into the stockmarket they will benefit bigtime
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Altria
Latest from the Goldman Sachs twitter channel: "go short on this piece of $#17 LOL"
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elbudamexicano
I tried Twitter for about 1 whole week! It is useless, waste of time! Thank you so much CNN for all the hype about the newest rage, Twitter??
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