Coastside
Analyzing Coastsiders on Twitter
by Kevin Henney, filed under:
For the past few weeks, I've been trying to put together a comprehensive list of Coastside residents on Twitter. Currently the list has leveled off at 266 members, and while I'm sure there are at least a few more out there, I think we now have a pretty good representation of local Twitter users. I thought it would be interesting to collect data from this list and see what we might learn about Twitter use on the Coastside.
Methodology: In compiling the Twitter list, I've defined "the Coastside" as the coastal areas of San Mateo County, bounded by Pescadero to the south and Montara to the north. Member's locations were primarily determined by the location listed on their Twitter profiles and from listings in various third-party Twitter directories. All data used was pulled from the Twitter API, including user data for each of the 266 list members and every tweet posted by list members for one week (between October 30, 2009 and November 5, 2009).
Who Tweets
Of the 266 users identified, 119 (45%) posted at least once during the week we analyzed. Of the 3,864 tweets captures for the week, 85% came from the top 10% of users, which is in line with the general Twitter population.
One big suprise, at least to me, is that Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) wasn't the coastside's most prolific Tweeter. That honor goes to Susan Lord (@MATTITUDEMOM); who's been been cranking out an average of 55 tweets per day, more than twice Scoble's output. Rounding out the top 5 most active are @buoy46012 (an automated bot that posts hourly wave info), @hardaway and @IBTerri. The 20 most active coastside Twitterers can be found in the chart below.
| Average Tweets per Day (all time) | |
|---|---|
| @MATTITUDEMOM |  55 |
| @Scobleizer | 24 |
| @buoy46012 | 23 |
| @hardaway | 20 |
| @IBTerri | 16 |
| @plangarden | 11 |
| @scoblelite | 10 |
| @JAdP | 10 |
| @krash63 | 10 |
| @JeriDansky | 6 |
| @coastsider_com | 6 |
| @lkilpatrick | 6 |
| @sunshinemug | 6 |
| @ccarfi | 5 |
| @jasonmancebo | 5 |
| @judynaomi | 5 |
| @surfergrrrl | 5 |
| @PDX_JP | 4 |
| @20dollarwine | 4 |
| @jtroyer | 4 |
How We Tweet
The Twitter web site tops the list of ways we access Twitter, but both TweetDack and Seesmic are well repesented as well. Many coastsiders are clearly aware of alternate means of tweeting;57% of those who posted more than once also used multiple clients.
If you're looking for guidance on which Twitter client is right for you, you might want to ask Francine Hardaway (@hardaway), who used 18 different clients in the one week period we examined. @Scobleizer posted from 8 different clients, and no one else used more than five.
| Top Clients (by number of users) | |
|---|---|
| 33% |
|
| TweetDeck | 11% |
| Seesmic | 7% |
| Tweetie | 5% |
| API | 4% |
| TwitPic | 3% |
| Echofon | 3% |
| Twitter Mobile | 2% |
| 2% |
|
| TwitterBerry | 2% |
When We Tweet
Coastsiders seem to be most vocal at the end of the week, with 21% of the tweets we captured occurring on Friday. Tuesday and Saturday were the slowest days.
| Tweets by Weekday | |
|---|---|
| Monday | 13% |
| Tuesday | 12% |
| Wednesday | 14% |
| Thursday | 15% |
| Friday | 21% |
| Saturday | 12% |
| Sunday | 13% |
What We Tweet
- 24% of tweets were retweets (RT)
- 22% of tweets contained at least one link
- 53% of tweets containing links used bit.ly for URL shortening
- 71% of tweets used the @ syntax to reference other twitter users
- 11% of tweets included a #hashcode
Follow Your Neighbors
If you're a fellow Coastsider (or just a Coastsider at heart), you ought to check out the full list of Coastsiders in Twitter and get to know your neighbors. You can follow the whole list, or browse through the list members and follow those who interest you. If you know someone who's missing from the list, just leave a comment below and I'll make sure they're added.
What do you think? Is there value in connecting online with your physical neighbors?
