Posted on Thursday, April 30 2009 @ 21:39 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Nielsen vice president of primary research David Martin
claims Twitter suffers from disloyalty, Martin states over 60 percent of new users fail to return the following month after they sign up. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have much higher retention rates.
Martin believes loyalty is a problem for Twitter, because despite Twitter's explosive growth in recent months, the number of Twitter's returning users -- the retention rate -- does not outnumber those giving up on Twitter after trying out the site. This could prove problematic, because while a high retention rates doesn't guarantee a site's success. it is a prerequisite for growth.
To support his assertion, Martin points out that both Facebook and MySpace had retention rates around 70 percent when they were emerging sites like Twitter is now, while Twitter languishes below 40 percent. Things have improved, though; before Oprah started tweeting and Ashton Kutcher took on CNN for Twitter dominance, Twitter's retention rate was below 30 percent.
