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How not to critique Twitter

 According to a new study of Twitter content that's getting a ton of play today, there's not much gold in them thar Tweets:

A short-term study of Twitter has found that 40% of the messages sent via it are "pointless babble."

Carried out by US market research firm Pear Analytics, the study aimed to produce a snapshot of what people do with the service.

Almost as prevalent as the babble were "conversational" tweets that used it as a surrogate instant messaging system.

The study found that only 8.7% of messages could be said to have "value" as they passed along news of interest. 

With all due respect to the good people at Pear Analytics, these numbers strike me as close to worthless.

Here's the problem. The numbers in question come from a random sampling of one of Tweets; after the researchers gathered 2000 messages, they classified them and evaluated their worth. 

If that sounds reasonable, it isn't--because this approach bears no resemblance whatsoever to how people actually use Twitter. After all, Twitter's great strength is that it allows you, the user, to determine who you follow--which means there's no need at all to subject yourself to a random deluge of content.

What's more, if you're following someone--a friend, a politician, a favorite athlete, whatever--you presumably attach "value" to most of what they have to say, even if it's "conversational," or "pointless babble," or "self-promotion[al]." If you don't, guess what? You stop following them. It takes about half a second.

Even though I'm a Twitter user, I think there's a legitimate conversation to be had about the service's value. But this study won't contribute much.

UPDATE: Here's much, much more on the study's bogosity.

  • Billy said:

    Discussed this in detail at blogger.sc

    My view is twitter is leading the charge to rid the world of mindless babble.

    blogger.sc/.../40-of-twitter-mindless-babble-study-says-duh

    August 19, 2009 10:54 AM
  • clemdane said:

    Studies show that 99% of Pear Analytics's research is pointless babble.

    August 19, 2009 8:55 PM
  • maya said:

    Twitter is full with automated messages. They are useless for me. I have many followers, but the quality messages are few... That's why I am seeking for new similar services with more quality. For example the new start-up  Gloggy - //gloggy.com or blurt

    August 20, 2009 4:11 AM
  • MayaSte said:

    Many of Twitter messages are automated and useless for me. I have many followers there, but rarely I can read something nice and interesting. Promotions, links, automated messages, RSS feeds...

    That is the reason to search less popular service similar to Twitter, but with quality content. For example I am testing the new start-up service, that is already popular Gloggy (//gloggy.com) and I am satisfied for now.

    August 20, 2009 4:15 AM
  • Alex Berish said:

    @maya The problem is that should Gloggy ever become popular it will be subject to the very same spam bots that plague Twitter.

    August 20, 2009 5:18 AM
  • floto said:

    What can twitter do for you?

    September 9, 2009 12:44 PM

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