14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter and mobile usage have always went hand in hand. The site started as a group SMS service and there have always been a plethora of third-party Twitter mobile applications. Yet, surprisingly, mobile usage didn't really pick up until Twitter started working on its own apps, early last year.
Twitter's new CEO Dick Costolo, talking at CES, revealed an interesting stat, at the moment, about 40 percent of tweets come from mobile devices.
Though the general impression is that this has more or less always been the case, just a year ago, only about 20 percent to 25 percent of tweets originated on mobile devices, the rest came from desktops and laptops, either from the site or through third-party desktop clients.
Another common misconception is that Twitter has stopped growing. While the site may not be seeing the kind of surge it got in early 2009, it added some 100 million new users, effectively doubling its active user base. And these new users have a much clearer choice when it comes to mobile apps.
By 2010, there were plenty of Twitter applications out there with an established brand and loyal users. Yet, it wasn't until the site started offering its own mobile apps, branded simply as "Twitter" that usage picked up significantly.
Twitter caused quite a stir when it started competing with app makers, by offering its own products, something it showed little interest before. The fear was that Twitter would destroy any chance outside developers had of creating a business for themselves, based on Twitter.
At the time Twitter said that there were plenty of users confused by the fact that there were no "Twitter" apps for their phones and the multitude of choices didn't make it any clearer which app they should install or who they could trust.
It's now obvious that Twitter was right, as soon as official Twitter apps became available, a lot more people started using the service on the go. [via Mashable]