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David Jackson's  Instablog

I'm the founder and CEO of Seeking Alpha. I worked for five years as a technology research analyst for Morgan Stanley in New York. I left in early 2003 to manage money (long/short) and explore new approaches to financial publishing, ultimately leading to the creation of Seeking Alpha. Prior to... More
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  • Remarkable Twitter Usage Stats 4 comments
    Oct 6, 2009 04:25 AM

    From Robert Moore's Twitter Data Analysis: An Investor’s Perspective:
    • Twitter's user growth is no longer accelerating. The rate of new user acquisition has plateaued at around 8 million per month.
    • Over 14% of users don't have a single follower, and over 75% of users have 10 or fewer followers.
    • 38% of users have never sent a single tweet, and over 75% of users have sent fewer than 10 tweets.
    • 1 in 4 registered users tweets in any given month.
    • Once a user has tweeted once, there is a 65% chance that they will tweet again. After that second tweet, however, the chance of a third tweet goes up to 81%.
    • If someone is still tweeting in their second week as a user, it is extremely likely that they will remain on Twitter as a long-term user.
    • Users who joined in more recent months are less likely to stop using the service and more likely to tweet more often than users from the past.
    We're watching Twitter carefully at Seeking Alpha, as we build out StockTalk.
    Themes: twitter, media
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This post has 4 comments:

  •  
    I would guess 75% of all Twitter messages are automated from software like Twitterfeed, Tweetlater, etc?

    Twitter are trying to get rid of the spammers, but from what I can see the vast majority of messages are just spam or noise still.

    A few related platforms like Stocktwits will succeed.

    I use Twitter, Stocktwits and SA's Stocktalks. The response / click through rate on Twitter is a tiny fraction of the success I used to get here on Stocktalks - before my SA messages were removed from public circulation - now only my followers see them.

    I think SA had a re-think of the public Stocktalk column. Bland "I just bought GOOG" or "Risk appetite is strong today" still gets published, but if your StockTalk message actually links to an external article or your own site then it gets dumped.

    I see the Stocktalk ranking system also changed. I can work within any guidelines, and greatly appreciate the site, but would prefer it is the goal posts weren't moved after every SA management meeting.
    Oct 06 05:23 AM | Link | Reply
  •  
    David, why you deleting the biographies of writers who are hedge fund analysts then claiming they are new writers? Your readers/DDR shareholders DEMAND to know who this analyst is, what his firm is, how many shares of DDRX they shorted, how many shares of DDRX they covered based on their article that dropped the stock 25%+ right before a takeover

    timothysykes.com/blog/.../
    Nov 03 09:25 AM | Link | Reply
  •  
    Tim, the only circumstances under which we delete the bios of contributing authors are:
    - if they are illegal, pornographic etc.
    - if the author behaves in a way that requires the deletion of their entire identity on SA (normally only professional spammers or people who are consistently abusive).

    Contributing authors are able to update (and therefore delete) their own bios. But we rarely see authors delete their own bios. If no bio is in place, it's usually because we are waiting for the author to provide it. In that case, we insert the standard text that you quoted stating that "xxx is a new contributor to Seeking Alpha who will soon submit a bio." In this case, it looks as though the author might have deleted his/her bio, and our default text therefore appeared.

    Note, however, that Seeking Alpha contributors can't delete their published articles from SA, or change the name under which those articles are published. This is one of the ways that SA provides accountability to readers, in contrast to the websites and blogs controlled by the authors themselves: readers can evaluate authors' track records, and authors aren't able to "cover their tracks" or delete articles retroactively.

    It was that feature that enabled you to (correctly) point out that in this case the author isn't new.

    We'll look into it.
    Nov 04 07:29 AM | Link | Reply
  •  
    OK, thank you for the reply, I'll update my story...you should seriously check into that guy's credentials, that one article screwed a lot of people out of the stock right before the takeover


    On Nov 04 07:29 AM David Jackson wrote:

    > Tim, the only circumstances under which we delete the bios of contributing
    > authors are:
    > - if they are illegal, pornographic etc.
    > - if the author behaves in a way that requires the deletion of their
    > entire identity on SA (normally only professional spammers or people
    > who are consistently abusive).
    >
    > Contributing authors are able to update (and therefore delete) their
    > own bios. But we rarely see authors delete their own bios. If no
    > bio is in place, it's usually because we are waiting for the author
    > to provide it. In that case, we insert the standard text that you
    > quoted stating that "xxx is a new contributor to Seeking Alpha who
    > will soon submit a bio." In this case, it looks as though the author
    > might have deleted his/her bio, and our default text therefore appeared.
    >
    >
    > Note, however, that Seeking Alpha contributors can't delete their
    > published articles from SA, or change the name under which those
    > articles are published. This is one of the ways that SA provides
    > accountability to readers, in contrast to the websites and blogs
    > controlled by the authors themselves: readers can evaluate authors'
    > track records, and authors aren't able to "cover their tracks" or
    > delete articles retroactively.
    >
    > It was that feature that enabled you to (correctly) point out that
    > in this case the author isn't new.
    >
    > We'll look into it.
    Nov 09 10:27 AM | Link | Reply
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