Whether it’s simply a case of celebrating the fifth anniversary since the launch of Twttr this month, or increased pressure to compete with statistics from Google’s latest social project, Google+, Twitter has been releasing more info and stats to prove how popular the site has become since going public in 2006.
Late last month Twitter announced 200 million tweets per day. Then last week, just one day after Google CEO Larry Page stated that 1 billion items are being shared per day on Google+, a Twitter development team tweet announced that number of tweets delivered per day has hit 350 billion.
But wait, there’s more. Here are some other recently released stats (see the bottom of this post for an infographic featuring more Twitter stats):
- More than 1 million: Number of registered Twitter apps.
- 600,000: Number of sign-ups per day.
- 7,196: The Women’s World Cup Final holds the new tweets per second record. That’s more info than you could process at the event!
- More than 200 million: Number of registered accounts.
Stats don’t always tell the real story, in fact, they rarely tell you the real story. Especially when it’s leaked, self-touting, and lacks integrity.
What is real is the fact that some monumental events have broken exclusively on Twitter recently, including:
- Navy Seals live op announced unknowingly over Twitter.
- President Obama begins tweeting. The tweets sent by Obama himself are trailed by -BO, as Obama says himself, “I am the first President to live tweet!”
- The Hudson River Plane crash (twitpic).
- Almost every natural disaster, including tsunamis, earthquakes, and tornadoes.
- Celebrity deaths (Michael Jackson & Patrick Swayze). Twitter was first to report the tragic events (though, to be fair, Charlie Sheen and a few celebrities reported dead are still rather alive).
Now, let’s look at what some of the cooler things people are using Twitter for:
- Watering plants. That’s right. It’s not just a time-delay, it actually will send you a tweet when the plant is drying up. Some assembly required.
- Twitter Town Hall. The first time a U.S. President conducted a press conference without the need of utilizing the press. Users submitted tens of thousands of questions to Obama through #AskObama hash tag. Twitter used algorithms to identify popular questions by reach and retweets. Twitter also had eight curators dedicated to the #askobama stream. What is a bigger deal? Twitter.com dedicating a subdomain to your event or the White House using your site for a press conference. Jack Dorsey, from Twitter, read the questions to Obama, and, interestingly enough, only used 1/18th of his chair.
- Events display featured real-time tweets to spark conversation and include fans. You see this happening on Comedy Central a lot. This is also happening at Target Field, where the Minnesota Twins play, now they even have a staffer dedicated to monitoring Twitter streams during the games and cherry picking good ones to include on the “Twitter Board” in the later innings of the game.
- Amber alerts. As regional-based services become more popular, we can utilize them to expand reach during critical first minutes of kidnappings and safety issues.
- Expense tracker and mileage tracker. One of my pet-peeves with mileage trackers is having to enter in tedious trip details. You should be able to tweet out a format with mileage markers and an app scanning your account for entries matching the format. Now you can.
- Package tracker using Twitter alerts. Why visit a website when all you have to do is login to your Twitter account to track your package?
- After laptop theft, man turns to Twitter for help. A Canadian tech journalist using a program called “Prey” to track his laptop, turns to Twitter for local help on tracking the guy down. Twitter users find out he’s a part owner of a bar in New York. After hundreds of tweets mentioning the user by his personal name, screenshots of his Gmail, Chase account, and pics of him (from the laptop’s web cam) the laptop finally is returned to the rightful owner.
- Police live-tweet a drug raid. A police press officer sent tweets during the briefing, when gearing up, and even uploaded photo’s during the breach.
We would love to hear how you have heard of Twitter impacting people’s lives, media, and marketing campaigns. Twitter’s ease of use and uniform platform really makes the possibilities vast for developers and the uses are literally infinite.
Also, check out this infographic from Visual.ly:
