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27% of Twitter users just read tweets and never write them

Jose A. del Moral — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:38:06 +0000

27% of Twitter accounts posted at least one public message between September 1st 2011 and November 30th, according to a study released by Semicast. This means that many Twitter users mostly use the service to read tweets from others.

The most active country on Twitter is the Netherlards, where 33% of accounts posted at least one public message. In second place comes Japan, while Spain is the third with 29%. This data comes from analyzing 383 million of Twitter user profiles created before January 1st 2012.

Drawing from its experience with previous studies, Semiocast used its proprietary platform, databases and tools to process user profiles in order to determine the location of each user using all available information (free-form location declared in user profile, time zone, language used to post tweets and GPS coordinates for the very few concerned tweets).

Mobile Monday Silicon Valley and the (difficult) future of SMS

Jose A. del Moral — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 09:40:05 +0000

“SMS are going to disappear in 5 years”. This is the most interesting quote I got from Mobile Monday Silicon Valley, a monthly event which gets around 300 people together in San Francisco or Palo Alto. This time the subject was as popular as the monetisation of the mobile web.

It’s a pity I have never felt so attracted by mobile phones, as this is a field in which people make a lot of money. But it’s clear that there are more people interested in meetups about the mobile web than about the fixed web. Why? Probably the (so far) easier monetisation has a lot to do.

AdMob, the company in which Ali Diab, the guy who said that SMS are going to die, works as VP of Product, is making a lot of money with mobile ads. There were also some interesting thoughts about how digital products are starting to be sold on mobile platforms. Nothing too different from what happens on the fixed Web. By the way, Orange has admitted losing revenues from SMS messages in Spain because of the competition from social networks.

So here is the interview I made with Kate Imbach, the organizer of this event. She came all the way from Boston!

San Francisco vs. Silicon Valley

Jose A. del Moral — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:21:17 +0000

Silicon Valley is not so big. Along the 101 route, between San Francisco and San José, you find cities like Palo Alto, Redwood City, Menlo Park, Cupertino or Mountainview, in which the big Internet firms have developed. But there are many differences between San Francisco and the rest of the valley.

1. Richness. The small cities of the Valley cumulate the richest guys. But San Francisco has probably the largest number of homeless people in the country. People leave their cars and houses open in cities like Palo Alto. You would not dare to do the same in San Francisco.

2. Fun. San Francisco has clubs and a very extensive night life. The cities in the valley are kind of boring.

3. Public transportation. You can live in San Francisco without a car. There are taxis, trams, buses and even a subway. In the valley you just need the car.

4. Venture capital. Most VCs are in the richest areas of the valley, which means Palo Alto and Menlo Park, around Stanford University. There are not so many of these in the events which take place in San Francisco.

5. Meetups. There are meetups everywhere in the valley. They just get more crowded in San Francisco, which explains why you usually have to pay to get into them. They also get some more known faces and the venues are some how cooler.

So today I went to the San Francisco NewTech meetup (SFNT), which takes place every month in San Francisco. It’s organized by Myles Weissleder, who used to be Vice President of Meetup.com. He is a really funny guy who knows very well how to handle some hundreds of geeks and entrepreneurs who just want to do some networking and know what people are doing. Around 200 people fill a huge room every month in which some tacos do help make the evening a bit longer. He even makes some money out of this events.

This is an interview with him:

And a view of the event:

Can you imagine if a company owned e-mail?

Jose A. del Moral — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:25:19 +0000

If a company owned e-mail, you would probably have to pay for certain messages (if not for all), spam would not exist and you would periodically receive ad messages (if you had not a premium account). Not posible? Now think about the last time you used a toll-road and consider two social networks you are probably using: twitter and Facebook. How many direct messages have you sent today thru them? Aren’t they substitutes of e-mail? Aren’t they owned by private companies?

“The Real Time Web”: The new buzz word for 2009

Jose A. del Moral — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:56:28 +0000

Every year we have a trend. Blogs, social networks, social media and crowdsourcing have been with us for the last 3 years. But their kingdom is over. The new buzz word is “The Real Time Web“. That’s what Twitter is all about. And some people even think Twitter (and Facebook) are going to come over Google, who has missed this trend.

Can it be true? I am not so sure. I remember people saying the same 3 years ago when Technorati was used to search on new stuff, faster than Google. Then Google launched its own blog search engine. In any case, this type of searches are not so popular. People are not so obsessed by new stuff as some journalists think.

The Real Time Web is not so much about information and search. It is about connections. People are talking in real time and that’s happening on Twitter. Should Google be worried? I don’t think so. It could launch its own tool, as it has already done with GTalk, but I really think Google should focus more on search and company applications. Not so much on real time.

The Real Time Web is a new business. It will probably be full of ads and real time commercial information. It will surely be a very profitable one. But it won’t kill Google’s business. People will keep searching historical data and old stuff. And Google has been so far unbeatable on this respect.

Twitter and the Real Time Web

Jose A. del Moral — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:55:30 +0000

As I read Louis Gray’s prediction on “Real-Time Web” becoming critical in 2009, I saw that the swedish word for microblogging (“mikroblogga”) has officially made it into the Swedish language. E-mail has been used for this so far, but spam is killing it. Messages on social networks, which is what microblogging really is, are here to substitute e-mail and avoid spam.

This means that Twitter and the rest of microblogging platforms (Facebook and FriendFeed, being the most popular) will have two types of uses:
- They will act as social networks, which probably was their primary goal: groups of people who know each other exchanging messages.
- They will act as news (and commercial information) distributors, which could become one of their main money sources. What happened in Mumbai has something to do with this, but as a secondary effect.

I am already watching several communities that are live on Twitter. I am myself using Twitter as a way to know how my friends are doing and getting to know them better. The good thing about it is that I don’t have to stop doing whatever I am doing. It does not interrupt me: just take a look at my twitterfox plugin on Firefox and see whatever my friends have to say. It is a bit adictive, though. In any case, it is clear that Twitter really needs to create an application for groups.

At the same time, I send interesting things to whomever wants to follow me (and I have previously accepted). This means I am spreading news thru Twitter. In fact, besides Twitter Search and TweetScan, there are already some applications which can be used to know which news are the most “linked” on Twitter, on real time and on a daily basis, such as Twitturly or TwitterBuzz.

Twitter niches

Jose A. del Moral — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:52:53 +0000

As Twitter keeps growing, bad people are trying to hack it, programmers are developing new features and applications and marketers are creating new niches. No need to talk any more about this week’s twitter virus and today’s Steve Jobs’ fake gossip (it came from MacRumors). Twitter needs a groups feature, so that things like Twittermoms or GospelR can be done on its site.

It’s clear that users need a way to divide their followers and marketers need a way to address messages to certain groups. Having a single flow of messages is good as a start point but will not grow to convert Twitter into a complete social network. Company twitter-like tool Yammer is doing it so much better!

Half a year ago Twitter admitted it was working on a groups feature, but there had not been any news so far, but a small test in Japan. Meanwhile, people have created small applications, such as Twitter Groups, Twittbot or GroupTweet (I especially like this one).

Silicon Valley vs. Europe: Mike Butcher has something to say

Jose A. del Moral — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 11:24:54 +0000

Back in May 2008, when TechCrunch UK‘s editor Mike Butcher came to Barcelona for Startup 2.0 and for a TechCrunch party, he had something to say about the Silicon Valley vs. Europe dilemma. He thinks that each part of Europe can become a component of what Silicon Valley is nowadays: German entrepeneurship, Spanish sun, British finances, etc. Is this realistic?

ETA’s bombing and twitter

Jose A. del Moral — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:27:28 +0000

Once again, I got the news from Twitter: basque terrorist group ETA has bombed TV channel EITB. Twitter has become the best way to get updates and be informed about what is going on around the world. World politicians are realizing this and, as matter of fact, Governor Schwarzenegger and the Consulate of Israel to the US have started twittering their views on current events. We can also use Twitter as an activist tool: I propose all twitter users to follow EITB’s twitter user in solidarity with their building being bombed today by terrorists.