Nielsen: 60% of Twitter users leave after a month

More than 60 per cent of US Twitter members abandon the site altogether after one month, according to new statistics.

Nielsen Online said that this translates into a retention rate of about 40 per cent, with this figure standing at 30 per cent before Oprah Winfrey joined the site earlier this month.

David Martin, vice-president of primary research for Nielsen Online, said in a blog post that this could be problematic for Twitter as such a low retention rate may hamper its overall growth.

He compared Twitter to MySpace and Facebook, noting that these two social networking websites had retention rates twice as high as Twitter's in their early phases and these went up to almost 70 per cent when they underwent explosive growth.

"A high retention rate doesn't guarantee a massive audience, but it is a prerequisite. There simply aren't enough new users to make up for defecting ones after a certain point," Mr Martin remarked.

However, Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim argued that the statistics may be incorrect as many Twitter users may indeed be starting off on the website, but then switching to a third-party app that lets them use the service without visiting the site.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.