Earlier this month, Twitter announced changes to its API along with some data to support the change. However, a study by Sysomos puts that data into clearer perspective.

Twitter reported that 90% of Twitter users do not use non-official Twitter apps (apps that Twitter doesn’t own or control). Statistics from Sysomos provide a very different story. As you can see in the pie chart below, Sysomos analyzed 25 million tweets that were published on March 11, 2011 and learned that only 58% of those tweets were published using an official Twitter app.

Sysomos broke down the 48% of tweets published using a non-official Twitter app and found that UberSocial and TweetDeck were the most popular as shown in the pie chart below.

Sysomos explains why there is such a discrepancy in the data reported by Twitter related to the use of non-official apps and the data collected by Sysomos. In simplest terms, more power Twitter users are using non-official Twitter apps and more people who have Twitter accounts and don’t tweet at all (or tweet very little) are using official Twitter apps. Since Twitter’s data relied on the number of Twitter users and the data collected by Sysomos relied on the number of actual tweets, the results look and sound very different.

Do you use a non-official Twitter app to publish tweets and manage your Twitter account? Leave a comment and tell us which app you prefer and why.

Images: Sysomos

Did you know that Newstex is the only content provider to offer editorially-selected Twitter feeds from, news, business, political, and independent Twitter publishers, including all Twitter feeds from the members of the U.S. Congress and Senate, U.S. Federal Agencies, and Canadian Parliament.

Now, the Twitter feeds of over 200 British Members of Parliament are available through Newstex Authoritative Content syndication, too!  These Twitter feeds include members from the Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Democrats and other parties.

Twitter has become an essential tool to communicate with people locally and around the world with the immediacy and reach of the platform attracting people from all walks of life.  By adding the Twitter feeds of British Members of Parliament to Newstex Authoritative Content, Newstex offers another way that people can get quick and easy access to reliable information they need to do their jobs rather than continually weeding through the clutter and falsehoods that can be found on Twitter.

Image: Flickr

With over 100 million new Twitter accounts opened in 2010 and the 1 billionth tweet published, Twitter has become a staple communication tool for people around the world.  While a small percentage of Twitter users still account for the majority of tweets, usage habits are changing as a new study by Sysomos reveals (shown in the chart below from eMarketer).

In 2009, 2 out of 5 people worldwide followed five or fewer people on Twitter.  In 2010, that number dropped significantly with fewer than 1 in 3 people following just five or fewer people.  On the flip side, in 2009, fewer than 1 in 10 people followed 100 or more people on Twitter, but in 2010, more than 1 in 5 people followed 100 or more people.  Similarly, the number of Twitter accounts that were followed by five or fewer people dropped from just under 1 out of every 2 accounts in 2009 (47%) to just under 1 in every 3 accounts in 2010 (32%).

Less than 10% of U.S. web users are using Twitter, but of those people who are using Twitter, they’re embracing it.  As the Sysomos study  reports, Twitter users are revealing more information about themselves than ever before, with more than twice as many users in 2010 offering information about their location, name, biography and URL than in 2009.

What do these statistics tell us?  A few things jump out at me.  First, there is still a lot of room for Twitter to grow.  Second, people are getting more comfortable revealing personal information online in general, and with the launch of more localized Twitter services in 2010, it’s not surprising that people are taking the time to complete their Twitter bios and offering more information about themselves.  Finally, the number of people who find real value in Twitter is growing, and they’re using Twitter more than ever.  Real relationships are developing, and the reasons people use Twitter are growing more diverse.

What once seemed like a useless tool for teens has turned into a vital communications tool for people around the world.  We’re still only at the beginning of the story of real-time communication and the story of Twitter.

In a move that’s in stark contrast to most web strategies, Twitter COO Dick Costolo told Adweek that the site would not be following the traditional revenue-generating path where banner ads clutter web pages.  Instead, Twitter plans to skip such short-term monetization tactics that detract from the user experience on the site and focus on long-term, sustainable revenue generating strategies that enhance the user experience rather than intruding on it.

The first step in this direction was the launch of Twitter’s Promoted Trends product which is showing increased conversations for promoted trends topics of 300-500%.  Twitter’s Promoted Tweets product is seeing engagement rates (including clicks, @replies, and retweets) as high as 5% and an 80% renewal rate.  You can learn more about Promoted Tweets in the video below.

The trick for Twitter will be to grow the Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets products and introduce additional monetization products through its growing advertising sales team that don’t end up monopolizing the site.  Just as Costolo notes that display ads can take over a site, so can promoted trends, sponsored tweets, and similar activities.

Twitter’s need to generate revenues through a sustainable business model isn’t a new topic across the business and online worlds.  However, Twitter is finally launching efforts to tackle the issue.  Will they work and at what point will monetization negatively affect the use experience, the brand, and the site?  We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s both interesting and educational to watch it play out.

What do you think about Twitter’s monetization methods?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts about Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets on Twitter.

While Twitter started out a few years ago as a social tool where people could communicate in real-time via short snippets, the team behind Twitter believes the site has evolved into something quite different — a news site.

In a presentation at Nokia World 2010 yesterday, ReadWriteWeb reports that Twitter’s vice president of business and corporate development, Kevin Thau, made the case for the site’s evolution into a news delivery tool.  Thau cited examples like the plane crash in New York’s Hudson River that was shared first with the world via an eyewitness’ tweet.  This is just one example of how both news organizations and individuals around the world not only turn to Twitter to share breaking news but also to “consume” news.

News related to the protests after the Iran elections not long ago trickled out from Iranian citizens via Twitter.  News about earthquakes in Haiti was communicated via Twitter.  Even the news of Michael Jackson’s death, first communicated via a blog, was consumed and verified via Twitter.

In other words, Twitter usage patterns have changed significantly in the few years since the tool debuted.  Today, there are 145 million active Twitter users, but according to Alexa, Twitter gets 910 million unique visitors, placing it in the top 10 largest websites.  Considering that 60% of Twitter’s growth today is coming from outside of the United States and the growing number of people with smartphones that make using Twitter on the go easier than ever, there is no doubt Twitter will continue to grow and evolve in the coming years.

Furthermore, yesterday Twitter announced its first redesign since the site’s debut, which is aimed to keep users on the site longer in order to attract more advertisers to make larger investments.  The redesign, paired with the site’s repositioning as a news source, makes a clear statement about where the team behind Twitter wants the site to go in the near future.

What do you think?  Do you use Twitter for news gathering, for socializing, or both?  Will the new design of Twitter affect your usage habits?

Newstex syndicates all of the tweets from U.S. Senate and House of Representatives members (check out the screenshots from the Newstex Politwits mobile app below), so our ears perked up when we read recent statistics about Twitter use by the U.S. government’s elected officials compiled by public relations firm Burson-Marstellar and published on Politico.

Here are the key statistics that might surprise you:

• 8 out of 10 of the most-followed Twitter accounts of Senators and Congressmen and women belong to Republicans.
• 67% of Republicans on Capitol Hill are actively using Twitter compared to just 41% of Democrats.
• 68% of House Republican Twitter accounts use the @reply feature to directly communicate with other Twitter users compared to 46% of Democrat accounts.
• 39% of Republicans maintain a second Twitter account for campaigns from their offices compared to just 31% of Democrats.
• An average of 4,820 Twitter users follow Republicans compared to just 2,972 for Democrats.
• In July, Republicans experienced a 6.7% month-to-month growth rate in terms of Twitter followers and Facebook likes compared to just 3.6% growth for Democrats.

Are you surprised by these statistics?  Considering how closely tied to Twitter and other tools of the social Web President Obama’s campaign was, one would think that there would be a wider focus on building social media relationships and influence within the Democratic party.  Two years ago, Republicans were playing catch up.  It seems the tables have turned.

What do you think?

Want to be part of the historical record officially?  You will be if you’ve published a public tweet on Twitter since March 2006, because your tweets are going into the Library of Congress archives.

You might not be able to edit those old tweets, but it’s as good a time as any to make sure your future tweets are good.  They’ll be available through the Library of Congress, after all.

The announcement began to travel quickly across Twitter and the social Web this morning when the Library of Congress published the tweet shown below.

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world and adding the complete public Twitter archive to its digital assets will undoubtedly spawn a lot of research in a wide variety of areas of study.

Newstex already syndicates tweets from thousands of authoritative bloggers and makes that content available to top distributors who provide it, primarily via closed systems such as corporate and educational libraries, to professionals who need access to trustworthy content to do their jobs.  Professionals in the fields of business, government, journalism, academics, and more access syndicated Twitter content for a variety of purposes, including research.  Contact Newstex to learn more about syndicating your Twitter content.

A new report from Sysomos based on an analysis of more than one billion tweets over a four month time period (December 2009 – March 2010) shows that Twitter use is still growing, particularly outside of the United States.

The number of tweets per day overall has increased by 30% in the past four months to over 53 million tweets in the month of March 2010 (up from 40 million in December 2009).

The chart below shows the Twitter growth within and outside of the United States.  In all three months tracked in the study, U.S. growth was surpassed by non-U.S. growth.

International growth rates for Twitter definitely bode well for the site’s future, but so do the active user retention statistics that show more Twitter users sticking with it than ever.  According to the Sysomos report,

“People who had been on Twitter for less than three months kept a steady presence, accounting for about 22% of total tweets in each of the past four months. This suggests new users are sticking around and establishing a solid presence.  People who had been on Twitter for more than nine months increased their activity in a major way to 41.6% of total tweets in March from 26% in December. This suggests that as people spend more time on Twitter, they tweet more frequently.”

Clearly, Twitter isn’t going anywhere.  In fact, it has become an integral form of communication, publishing, and marketing in 2010 and beyond.

Follow Newstex on Twitter (@newstex), and learn about syndicating your Twitter content through Newstex for fun and profit.

Is there even any doubt anymore that Twitter is here to stay?  It has become a key form of communication and authoritative content publishing and sharing, and events from the first month of 2010 only further solidify Twitter’s place as a vital tool of the 21st century.

The tragic earthquakes in Haiti have been a top subject on Twitter since the first tremor struck earlier this month and this week Twitter went down when a second earthquake hit and the site became flooded with traffic and tweets.  Twitter became a vital source for sharing breaking news, helping loved ones find each other, sharing information about donating money to help Haitian citizens, and more.  It’s truly amazing how Twitter has helped to shrink the world, and it’s hard to believe that the tool has only been around for a few years.

Even reporters are using Twitter to replace or supplement their work.  In a blog post published earlier this week on Web Ink Now, David Meerman Scott wrote about his trip to a senate rally where President Obama spoke.  David sat in the press area during the event and took a video (shown below) of a few of the many reporters he saw using Twitter to communicate news throughout the event.  He even spoke with a reporter from the Washington Times who shared her story saying she uses TweetDeck to keep track of her thoughts during events.  You can read more about David’s experience on his Web Ink Now blog.

So really, is there even any doubt anymore that Twitter is here to stay?  More importantly, is there any doubt that it now holds an important place as a vital source for communication, news, and authoritative content?

Did you know Newstex syndicates authoritative Twitter content?  If you’re a publisher, you can learn more about syndicating your Twitter content here, and if you’re a distributor, you can learn more about Twitter content syndication through Newstex here.

2009 was the year of Twitter.  From news spreading faster and wider than ever before to the sharing of authoritative content and all the fun and entertainment that the tool brought to people around the world, Twitter grew bigger than anyone could have imagined.  Earlier this week, I wrote about Twitter’s explosive growth in 2009, and today I want to follow up by writing about the top Twitter trends in 2009.

According to the Twitter blog, the top Twitter trends of 2009 covered a wide variety of topics from news to entertainment, sports to technology, and more.  Most of the top news-related Twitter trends in 2009 were related to politics and a wide variety of Twitter users joined those conversations.  What I found particularly interesting in the list of the top 2009 Twitter trends is the inclusion of some topics that were most certainly discussed by Twitter users who publish authoritative content.

Consider the top 10 news Twitter trends in 2009 listed below:

1. #iranelection
2. Swine Flu
3. Gaza
4. Iran
5. Tehran
6. #swineflu
7. AIG
8. #uksnow
9. Earth Hour
10. #inaug09

It’s interesting to imagine what will dominate the Twitter conversations of 2010.  Will more and more authoritative conversations occur on Twitter in 2010 than 2009?  I think it’s safe to assume that will be the case, and Newstex will continue to syndicate more and more of that authoritative Twitter content in 2010!

Happy New Year from the entire Newstex team!