Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Yesterday I gave some qualitative reasons to supplement quantitative numbers by Hitwise to suggest that Plurk has had more traffic than Twitter in Singapore since July, 2008.
One thing that I’m wondering, from what I’m gathering from the data, is how the visits are measured. Plurk is automatically updated, Twitter isn’t. Twitter can also be accessed from desktop applications like Twhirl, Tweetdeck and many others. Are these factored in? How about mobile apps for Twitter like Twinkle and Twitterific? Similarly, how about mobile access for Plurk? The Plurk app for iPhones and iPod Touches?
In other words, are there “hidden” traffic sources that we should be looking at?
Secondly, looking at Prof. Michael’s blog post that points to Hubspot releasing a report that lists Singapore as one of the top 30 Twitter cities worldwide, I’m wondering this: If Plurk has more traffic in Singapore than Twitter, and Twitter is in the top 30 Twitter cities, what does that say about any city that is not in the top 30? Are they by default, even less than Singapore’s Plurk traffic?
What are the implications of these statistics on people looking to use microblogging as a communications tool? Is it far from being mainstream if a top 30 city is a small one like Singapore?
Granted, neither of these data points are concrete and conclusive. The Hubspot data uses about 500,000 Twitter users as a sample size. This seems to be the problem most of us are dealing with. It’s not a complete lack of information, but imperfect information. Should we just take what is available and work from there because it’s better than nothing? What are the alternatives? Would love to hear from those struggling to answer these questions just as much as I am.
Tags: hitwise, hubspot, microblogging, microblogging mainstream, plurk traffic, Singapore, tweetdeck, twhiel, twinkle, twitter cities, twitter traffic, twitterific
Posted in Plurk, Research, Singapore, case studies, twitter | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Prof. Michael blogged yesterday about a Hitwise article pointing to much higher (1.5x) more visits to Plurk than Twitter recently in Singapore, and has attracted more traffic since July of 2008.
This data (though I do have some questions about it which I will blog about tomorrow) seems to validate what I’ve been feeling intuitively over the last six months or so. If I had to point to reasons, I have broadly speaking, two:
1) Twitter failed us
Looking back, my very first post on my switch to Plurk was on the 3rd of June, 2008. The blog post even leads with
Twitter’s downtime over the last couple of months has really pissed off a lot of people, most of all me.
With that timeframe in mind, let’s look at Hitwise’s research:
Plurk vs Twitter Visits
The image clearly shows the surge in visits occurs somewhere around the 28th of June. A reasonable enough time for a technology to diffuse down the adoption curve.
2) Localisation and Intimacy
When I first wrote about the switch to Plurk I had four main reasons:
Now that I’ve been using Plurk for awhile, these reasons have compressed into two: intense localisation and intimacy. My theory is Singaporeans don’t need the wide reaches of Twitter. Because of our relatively smaller size as a country, we’re used to smaller interactions, which is perfect for what Plurk achieves. I think most people have less than 100 friends, which makes following easy. This is different from the Twitter “power users” in the US, as following 5,000 friends on Plurk would probably literally send someone insane.
The second theory is that by nature of Plurk consisting of small, threaded, intimate conversations, it lends itself naturally to a very high level of localisation. When you join Plurk and realise the Singaporean users are talking about local places, local weather, the movie releases in Singapore and what’s on television, it has a much more relevant feel than Twitter (were you on Twitter during the recent Superbowl?) and as a result presents a very, very low barrier to entry.
Recently a few people from SMU joined Plurk, and while I would never have imagined them on Twitter, I think Plurk works perfectly, especially when there are friends you know using the service already.
In closing, I think Singaporeans are terribly practical, and have no issues with community migration on a small scale (let’s not talk about migrating 500 friends on Facebook). The first factor, Twitter failing, led to the search for an alternative. What many of us found, is the second factor – a level of relevancy and community that Twitter did not offer. In short, the new application provided a better alternative, and most of us have never looked back.
If you’re a Plurk user in Singapore, do you agree? How about if you’re a die-hard Twitter user? Let’s hear it!
Tags: adoption curve, community migration, facebook, hitwise, intimacy, localisation, michael netzley, organic conversations, Plurk, superbowl, threaded conversations, twitter, twitter fail
Posted in Plurk, Singapore, case studies, community, twitter | 18 Comments »
