‘Study shows that only 27% of Twitter users tweeted during a three month period‘ says a story in The Next Web.

My reading of the same piece is very different.   Once you put that stat into its proper context, it is not a case of *only* 1/4 using their accounts.  Rather, this shows that Twitter user engagement is on the increase.

For example, in 2010 RJ Metrics worked out that Twitter’s churn was actually in the region of 83%.   And in April I estimated that, based on Business Insider stats, of the 175 million accounts, there were perhaps 20 million truly active human beings on Twitter.

My guess is that 1/4+ engagement is something neither Google+ or Foursquare would be able to demonstrate.

Semiocast, the company behind the study cited in The Next Web says that of the 383 million Twitter accounts 28.1% were in the US.   This confirms previous research showing that Twitter has become less US focused.   Semiocast previously showed that the fastest growing language on Twitter is Arabic, with 60% of tweets not being in English.

Semiocast also confirms an earlier Comscore study which held up the Netherlands as the top Twitter country when measured as the % of the overall Internet population using it.   Semiocast says that the Netherlands had the Twitter users (33% of all Internet users), followed by Japan (30%)

Image – Laughing Squid

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A few months ago I trained a multinational, which has a policy of only responding to English-language tweets, on how to interact with customers on Twitter.

I knew that none of the top five Twitter countries (by % penetration) are English speaking.  But I didn’t question it too closely, understanding the practical difficulties of having a multilingual Twitter feed and assuming that English was still the lingua franca of social media.

In fact, research by French monitoring firm Semiocast shows that both this policy and my assumptions could do with being revised.

Semiocast found that though 70 million tweets a day are sent in English, more than 60% of tweets have been in other languages for the best part of a year.   Starting in Feb 2010, English slipped under the 50% barrier, and its share has since ‘stabilised’ between 35-40%.

It is also instructive to look at what is happening to other languages.   Japanese is still the no.2 language on Twitter, but has dropped from 19% to 14%.   Portuguese is at no.3 with 12% thanks to one word – Brazil.

Study after study shows that Brazilian Internet users are on average, super engaged.   For example, according to Al Jazeera, Brazil boasts the fastest rate of Facebook growth worldwide.

Arabic twitter messages up 2146%
At a time when demonstrations are again erupting in Cairo, the real story however is the growth of Arabic on Twitter.  Over the past year, the volume of Arabic twitter messages multiplied 22x, making Arabic the 8th most popular language on Twitter.

The Jerusalem Post tells us that the Arab world’s adoption of Twitter as a communications tool, is mirrored on other social networks.  The past year has seen 19 million new Facebook accounts created in North Africa and the Middle East, an increase of 51%.

The boom in Arabic language tweets is all the more remarkable given that, according to the Jerusalem Post, Arabic hashtags are only supported by the mobile version of Twitter.    In response to that, a Qatari group called #letstweetinarabic (@taghreedat) is campaigning to increase Arabic content.

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According to Cisco, worldwide mobile data use is projected to hit 3.5 million terabytes by 2014 (via Technology Review) – the year in which mobile is set to overtake PC Internet use.

Western Europe (30%) and Asia Pacific (26%) will both have higher share of the global mobile data total than North America (22%).    However, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America are showing the highest rates of growth – albeit from a relatively small base.

Some stats out from Nielsen (via Marketing Charts) show that North Americans and Europeans are less enthusiastic adopters of mobile video than web users in other parts of the world.

If 100 is the global average, then the European Union scores 55, while North America comes out even worse at 45.   Compare that to Asia Pacific at 145 and the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan (why that combo?) at 136.

Why is this significant?  Because using mobile video is the tipping point at which people switch from their laptop or PC being their primary Internet device, to their mobile.

This is according to a study by Transpera a year ago, which showed that 62% of mobile video users use their mobile/cellphones to browse the Internet more than they use their computers.

Perhaps one reason for the North America and European figures could be down to increased data capping, with both AT&T in the US and the major UK operators having called time on unlimited mobile data.  If so, pricing is having a real impact on consumer behaviour and online habits.

Meanwhile in Japan, Softbank still allows unlimited data for its iPhone4 plans.   And with the Middle East being quick on the mobile video uptake, UAE telecoms company DU has an unlimited data plan with a ‘fair use’ policy of a whopping 10gb.   Compare that to the fair use policy of Orange in the UK of…750mb.

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Metrics company Comscore has come out with a study on global Internet use by hours spent surfing. Surprisingly, Microsoft’s range of websites – in particular Windows Live Messenger – leads, with 15% of time spent online globally.

However at the same time as Australian website Digital Media points out, YouTube and Facebook, arguably the two highest profile players in the social media category, took up almost 10% of the 27 billion global Internet hours people in Sept 09.

Looking at Facebook, its share of hours grew by 193%. It also over-indexes significantly in both Europe (6.6% share vs 5.1% globally), and the Middle East / Africa (where it has 8%).

It’s worth noting that Comscore’s data excluded time spent surfing from a mobile device. If that had been factored in, then Facebook’s share would almost certainly have been higher. According to Facebook’s Director of Mobile, Henri Moissinac, the network now has 65 million mobile users – or 25% of its total reach.

Recently, stats showed that Facebook had reached almost 100 million users in Europe. Though the UK is by far the leading territory with 20+ million plus users, the network showed particularly strong growth in Italy, Germany and Turkey.

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