[REBLOG] Interesting fact: more Tweets posted are 28 characters than any other length [Updated]

This article was originally posted on TheNextWeb.com on January 7, 2012, by Matthew Panzarino. You can read the original article here.

If you’ve ever wondered how long the average Tweet is, then this graph should answer some questions for you. Created by Twitter employee Isaac Hepworth, it is a sampling of 1 million Tweets published on the network, excluding retweets. The graph is plotted out by number of characters and allows for a couple of interesting conclusions to be drawn. Updates below.

Among those is the fact that most Tweets are around 30 characters long. To be exact, Hepworth says that the spikes are at 28 and 31.

In addition to the average length, there is also a rather large spike at 140 characters. At first this might seem suspicious, but Hepworth brings up a good point when he attributes it to either Tweets that are edited down to the max character limit in order to fit, or split into multiple Tweets when they can’t be made to fit.

It also seems that once people get to around the 100 character range, they’re in it for the long haul, as it slopes back upwards at 120+ characters. This may be attributable to link-shortened URL’s that are Tweeted out with post titles from blogs and websites. Most titles from publications, like this one, attempt to deliver the maximum amount of information, while still leaving room for URLs and space for re-tweeted opinions. The 110 character point is roughly the sweet spot.

Does this graph fit in with your Tweeting habits? Does it make you feel like sending more 115 character Tweets to stand out from the crowd? Let us know in the comments.

Update: Interesting. Hepworth posted up a second chart that represents just tweets from the ‘desktop’ web client and it shows an even more pronounced spike at the 140 character limit. This would indicate that those Tweets are more likely edited down to the maximum length, rather than filled out automatically using a service like Twitlonger.

You’ll note that the spikes at 28 and 31 are gone as well, although the overall trend towards 30 characters remains.

I chatted briefly with Hemsowrth about his findings and he was quick to correct me on the ’30 character length’ numbers. In fact 28 characters represents the mode value of the sample. This means that there are more Tweets in the sample that are 28 characters in length than any other number, but these don’t represent a majority overall.

Who’s going to win? Facebook or Google+?

After deactivating my Facebook account about a week ago, I started using Google’s relatively new social networking system, Google+. I’ve also been thinking about which social network will win out the most users in the long run. Several of my friends have already signed up for Google+, but Facebook still looks healthy and strong despite recent allegations about how they deal with user privacy. First off, a little bit of history behind these companies:

Google’s attempts at social networking

Google+ is not the company’s first attempt at social networking integration. Earlier in 2009 or so, the company launched Google Buzz, which could be accessed through a special tab in Gmail. It resembled Twitter in a fashion, but the commenting system gave it more of a Facebook feel. Despite the initial hype, the social networking platform fell flat on its face, and now the company is permanently discontinuing it. Another one of Google’s notable social networking products is Orkut, which, strangely, is very popular among Brazilians while in the rest of the world it seems that nobody has even heard of it.

But what about Facebook?

Facebook started off completely differently. No big company was involved in its creation; in fact, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerburg created it from his Harvard dorm room. The site, originally called “The Facebook,” was intended for college students, but after seeing its popularity, Zuckerburg expanded it to the general public. Lately though, the social network has suffered from various lawsuits regarding user privacy, and even a movement aimed at getting users to deactivate their Facebook. Still, Facebook continues to grow at an astounding rate. At last count, 800 million users were registered, and the social networking giant continues to grow at an average of 3.5% per month.

So who’s going to win?

Google+ was released to the public with rave reviews. Some called it “a social networking revolution”, with its novel Circles feature allowing you to share content with only select groups of people. This attempt by Google seems much more formidable than some previous attempts, and looks on track to be the next big social networking platform. However, it is advisable to take this optimism with a grain of salt. Buzz was hailed as a “revolution”, but came tumbling down.

Facebook is still growing, and thankfully, they’ve implemented new features to help users manage what others see. Overall, they’ve done a good job of handling the lawsuits. The site has also been adding new features such as a chat sidebar, live updates of friends’ activities, and now a Timeline, to mixed reviews.

Yet, in the end, only one of these platforms will become the Alpha Dog while the other sinks into obscurity. I believe that the freshness of Google+ will give it a huge initial surge in users. Besides, Google has long held its standing as the top search engine, and the integration of a social platform will bring many users. It seems that, for this war, Google+ will become the ultimate victor as Facebook sinks deeper into the privacy lawsuits.

HELLO NEW TWITTER!

Well, I’ve been waiting for what seems forever, but my preview of the new Twitter has finally come.

I absolutely love the aesthetics of the new Twitter! Here’s some of my favorite new features:

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Why Facebook’s Like button is completely pointless

You see a funny, insightful, or cool status and press the like button. Five seconds later you forget about it.

The person on the other end receives a notification: “This person likes your status.” Five seconds later that person forgets about it.

In this respect the Like button is completely pointless.

What Facebook really needs: Grouped notifications

I went to the store, and I bought paper, I bought pens, I bought pencils, I bought snacks, I bought a book on why Deathgleaner has the best blog of all time…

Doesn’t that sentence sound so tedious to you? Why can’t we just say “I went to the store, and I bought paper, pens, pencils, snacks, and a book…”?

Let’s count from 1 to 20K! NOT!

Careful Facebook users, because that’s a big fat phising attempt up your ass. I won’t click on the link (pyrohawk.com) but I’m pretty sure it infects your computer with a virus.

Please tell all of your friends to:

1. Remove the page from their connections if it’s in there
2. Change their password. The site may have stolen the password and given it to hackers
3. Run a virus scan immediately

And yes, I’m a web safety Nazi.

Twitter gets another redesign

According to Twitter, the new homepage brings more info about trending topics to the front lines. I totally agree with that. The previous redesign made Twitter a lot simpler, almost too simple. This time, they got it right.

Pages: 1 2

Happy 4th Birthday Twitter!

Dear , Happy 4th Birthday!

Along with Facebook, YouTube, and Myspace, you have revolutionized our lives. Whether it’s good or bad, I’d like to say Happy Birthday with some lists and infographics:

Twitter tweets accelerate to 50 million per day

The Path to 1 Billion Tweets (by Mashable)

Favorites of Twitter:

• Retweet feature
• Flashcard feature
• Minor word tweaks
• Echofon Twitter app released
• Interface (simple and straightforward)

Dislikes of Twitter:

• Spam
• Constant phishing attacks
• Not a lot of people (like Facebook)

You can follow me (@Deathgleaner) or my blog (@tboxblog) on Twitter.

http://deathgleaner.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/quick-look-twitter-flashcards/

Twitter’s 385 banned passwords

Did you know that there are 386 passwords that you can’t use to log in to your account? It’s true! But, that 386 less passwords for hackers to try to guess (of course, if you pick a secure password no one’s gonna get it.) How do we know? These passwords are all in a comma-delimited list of banned passwords in the Twitter.com/signup source code.

Quick Look: Twitter flashcards

Twitter flashcards

What are Twitter flashcards? You may not know, because they were introduced very recently.

To the left is a screenshot. Basically, whenever you scroll over someone’s name, whether it be in a mention or before the actual tweet, one of these will pop up. You can follow the person, unfollow, and see their statistics as shown to the left. It’s a very helpful tool since you don’t have to go directly to their user page to view all this.

Some apps, like Echofon for Firefox, already have this feature, but it’s not as good.