The *Real* Top 20 Twitter Applications
I get very bent out-of-shape when people post inaccurate or misleading statistics. TechCrunch just recently had a post on the Top 20 Twitter Applications in which they used traffic to the applications’ web sites to determine the top 20 apps. While they admit it’s not the best, they left out one of the top Twitter clients (which didn’t make Loic happy, of course) and the data really is not representative of the truth.
As part of TweetStats, I pull in data from Gnip on every single Twitter update and the associated application. So, here are the real Top 20 Twitter applications.
| Twitter Applications | Monthly Updates (from TweetStats) |
|---|---|
| Web | 22,107,803 |
| TwitterFeed | 4,509,089 |
| TweetDeck | 3,284,881 |
| txt | 2,458,941 |
| Twitterrific | 2,184,787 |
| TwitterFox | 1,999,972 |
| Twhirl | 1,980,543 |
| mobile web | 1,190,309 |
| Tween | 911,026 |
| TwitterBerry | 870,460 |
| TwitterFon | 763,050 |
| Tweetie | 553,820 |
| movatwitter | 442,624 |
| FriendFeed | 440,075 |
| P3:PeraPeraPrv | 436,841 |
| Twinkle | 335,535 |
| Twit | 330,110 |
| Ping.fm | 276,177 |
| Perl Net::Twitter | 239,023 |
| Power Twitter | 208,294 |
Footnote: This is out of slightly over 50 million Twitter updates in January. It does not included protected users and there may be some tweets missing due to downtime in Twitter or Gnip. But for the most part, this is very representative.
Update: Another quick stat – in January, 1,231 different client applications were used to post updates to Twitter.
Excellent to see a more accurate reading of the twittersphere. Any plans to offer a larger toplist updated occasionally, in order to give us an idea of *movers and shakers* over time?
February 19th, 2009 at 7:01 pmThis is a great list and I agree with Kenop that you should update it occasionally. Thanks for some actual facts and not the crap that alot of people post.
P.S.~ Your tweets are always interesting Damon.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:08 pm@Kenop
I’d really like to update TweetStats to show a Compete.com-like interface for client stats. That’s the goal, but implementation of it is simply suffering the fate of being a side project.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:12 pmGreat stuff, I’ve been watching (and have written about) TweetStats and TweepSearch and am continually impressed with the kind of stuff you pump out. Keep up the good work.
February 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm[...] Other notable apps on the list are a trio of iPhone clients TwitterFon, Tweetie, and Twinkle. There was also FriendFeed and Ping.fm. Damon also notes that 1,231 different clients sent at least 1 update to Twitter in January. Check out the full report. [...]
February 19th, 2009 at 8:12 pmI have to recommend DestroyTwitter…
It’s an awesome little Adobe Air app.
Twitter was lame until I found it.
http://www.destroytoday.com/projects/destroytwitter
February 19th, 2009 at 9:33 pmYou can tell that more and more people use tweetdeck, they answer tweets eight hours after they were sent and no longer bother to converse for more than two or three messages.
It’s a shame there’s the current “I want to follow six thousand twitter users for my presence to have meaning”. I wish that fad would get hit by a train and for people to come back to twitter to be conversational.
That’s what made twitter so popular in the first place.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:50 pmGreat article. I myself use TweetDeck and absolutely love it. I’ve always wondered what other popular twitter apps were being used out in twitterland.
February 19th, 2009 at 11:20 pmJust a little clarification, but all Twitter apps are not created equal, meaning an “app” may or may not post updates to Twitter. I think your article should be addressing the following list on TechCrunch of Twitter “clients”, not the “applications” list, since an application might never be visible in the data coming from Gnip:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-21-twitter-clients-according-to-twitstat/
As the lead developer of http://www.twellow.com, a Twitter directory application, I have to agree with the conclusion that the TechCrunch articles are not accurate for either the application or client lists. Twellow.com does not appear on the application list, when compete.com data shows it should be at position #7. Twellow is indeed listed in CrunchBase, where TechCrunch claims to have pulled the apps from. The TechCrunch articles are simply inaccurate.
February 20th, 2009 at 7:30 amMatthew,
Agreed – I ripped the title from TechCrunch in an attempt maintain their sensationalism. But yes, this should be “The Top 20 Twitter client applications that post updates to Twitter and have their source parameter set properly”.
Note that Twitterrific also does not distinguish between it’s desktop client and mobile clients.
There’s also some interesting data here that show a variety of flux in client applications over the weekend. i.e. desktop usage goes down and mobile usage goes up.
Maybe I’ll post a study about it one day…
February 20th, 2009 at 10:01 amAnd as an additional side note, solely to boost my own ego, I noticed that two of my Twitter applications would come in at #11 and #19 if we were talking about Twitter “applications”.
Heck, you could even count this site (and it would make the list) as I have two Twitter “applications” here – my DM Whacker and the First Follow.
So I’m certainly not trying to skew the data, but I think I was rather clear that I was discussing clients.
February 20th, 2009 at 10:09 am[...] damon cortesi No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this [...]
February 21st, 2009 at 10:48 am[...] The *Real* Top 20 Twitter Applications [...]
February 22nd, 2009 at 3:53 amSome conclusions that popped into my head:
1. Wow, mobile phones and twitter seem to be a perfect match with the small text limit. This is something that twitter should be monetizing, but is not.
Perhaps the existence of this third party txt -> twitter application will hurt twitter in the future because of customers that prefer the third party (unmonetized) version instead of a monetized “official” version?
2. Cross-linking between different social platforms seems to be more and more popular. The amount of social websites has bloomed in recent years, but the amount of time that people have for these websites has never been lower.
I forsee applications and services designed towards simplifying social networks and functions to become extremely successful.
February 22nd, 2009 at 8:17 pmDamon, nice job man, nice job!
Compete.com is a great resource if you are looking at consumer facing web apps (great in the advertising/interactive space) but certainly with the blurring of lines between web and mobile, things get a bit more difficult.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:59 pmThanks, Ingrid! But thanks most of all for making Gnip accessible to us weekend coder-folk.
Hopefully I can keep the database kicking with all the data I’m pumping in.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:42 pmI find it interesting that Twitterfeed is #2, especially since there are many preaching “authentic” and “anti-auto post” messages. Of course my opinion is subjective since I do work for Alltop.
Thanks for this Damon!
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:45 pm[...] popularity has skyrocketed in the recent months. Usage statistics states that most people who use Twitter interact with the application via the web rather than a [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 5:27 pmCould you release some more of the data, like top 100 twitter clients? I’d be interested to see where some of the other clients placed.
March 2nd, 2009 at 7:01 am[...] Twitter已经衍生为一种产业链条。有种说法认为目前只要跟twitter搭上边的服务都会有不错的发展。这类工具的不断完善确实为Twitter用户提供的极大的便利，但是根据TweetStats的统计数据显示用户进行tweets更新的主要渠道依旧还是Twitter网站本身以及feed推送。从Twitter开始流行到现在，Twitter网站本身的改变并不大，最近比较大的动作也只是增加了搜索框。虽然备受欢迎，但是依旧很多人指责twitter网站本身的简洁和功能简单，用户并不满足目前Twitter所只有的几个功能。Six Revisions在文章10 Features That Will Make Twitter Better就对Twitter网站的UI功能增强提出了一些想法。这些功能对于用户体验和更便利的交流有很大的作用。但是正式这些twitter功能缺陷，才让更多的类似Twitter的微博客服务有了发展空间，如果Twitter完善这些功能后，别人会怎么活呢？ [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 1:12 am[...] DCortesi . blog » The *Real* Top 20 Twitter Applications (tags: client twitter api stats) [...]
March 4th, 2009 at 4:00 am[...] Theres been alot of lists made, Ive even posted a few but if u disagree with any of these, lemme know… this has to be the best list you’ll find… [...]
March 5th, 2009 at 7:05 pm[...] popularity has skyrocketed in the recent months. Usage statistics states that most people who use Twitter interact with the application via the web rather than a [...]
March 8th, 2009 at 1:23 am[...] DCortesi . blog » The *Real* Top 20 Twitter Applications Awesome twitter clients – nice to see the stats (tags: twitter lists applications statistics api apps) [...]
March 30th, 2009 at 5:15 pm[...] Aber Twitter ist hier thematisch auch noch in einer anderen Hinsicht interessant. Konzipiert war der Dienst vor allem als mobiles Microblogging — die Vorstellung, daß wir alle zu Hause an unseren Computern sitzen und Twitters Browser-Interface oder das von anderen Anbietern benutzen, hatte anfangs niemand im Sinn. Die zunehmende Popularität auf der einen und die überhöhten SMS-Preise auf der anderen (nicht nur hier übrigens, sondern auch in den USA), die Twitter zudem dazu zwangen, weltweit mit wenigen Ausnahmen den kostenlosen SMS-Versand einzustellen, hat diese Entwicklung enorm gefördert. Letztes Jahr um diese Zeit war “Web” mit 56% der mit Abstand beliebteste Twitter-Client, und diese Zahl ist seitdem keinesfalls gesunken. [...]
April 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm[...] – Statistica cu cele mai utilizate aplicatii Twitter [...]
April 28th, 2009 at 7:37 am