Fun stuff in a Pew Research report about Twitter users: only 16% of America’s adults use Twitter. Of them, only half use it for news. That means – I’ll do the math for you, you’re welcome – only 8% of USA adults use Twitter for anything more than ranting and following Miley Bieber or Khloe Cyrus or whoever. The data get more interesting: roughly half of Twitter’s users are 18-29 years old, and they are disproportionately college-educated, relative to the rest of the US population. Put that together with recent unemployment trends and the pattern emerges: Twitter is the home for unemployed college students with nothing better to do. Great demographics, there.
Twitter news users tend to be caught up in a constantly-shifting emotional flux. They forward along stories, talk about them for a few hours, and then lose all interest and focus in the face of a new story to be passionate about. I don’t see much monetization potential here, space cadets.
This makes me wonder about those that purchased Twitter stock… while I won’t offer any advice on equities, I will wonder about the sanity of those that bought into the hype. Perhaps I shall find some cultist fodder amongst their weak and suggestible minds.