The significance of Twitter quitters
Does Nielsen research showing high numbers of Twitter users who bail out quickly mean it's a fad?
"Is Twitter over? (16 characters)," said Joe Flint in the Los Angeles Times. "Probably not." But new Nielsen research says that 60 percent of the people who try out the micro-blogging website— "where users post 140-character updates on ... well, anything"—bail out within a month. Apparently, despite all the buzz, people want more than the "navel-gazing" and self-promotion Twitter delivers.
People who check out Twitter and bail just don't get it—yet, said Robert Strohmeyer in PC World. No problem—"we won't miss you if you log off until you get a clue." But once the coin drops you'll find that Twitter offers a "multi-user conversation to rival any other social medium. The more people you follow, the more enlightening the conversation can be."
Twitter can be fun, said Burt Helm in BusinessWeek. It's entertaining to see what friends, co-workers, and celebrities are doing and thinking. But "if people can't form a lasting Twitter habit, even when the site is at its trendiest," it's clear that Twitter is just a fad.
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