Twitter vs. Facebook

With the recent increase in the popularity of Twitter and with everyone from Barack Obama to Britney Spears signing up, it leads us to question how popular Twitter actually is. 

20% of Twitter users have joined in the last 60 days and Twitter is expected to double its members within a year. However, just how far does Twitter lag behind Facebook in popularity?

The media mentions Facebook about 4 times as often as Twitter, but Facebook is over 30 times bigger than Twitter and it is growing much faster. 

Twitter has 4-5 million users with 5-10 thousand new accounts opening per day. This seems huge, but the reality is that 30% of Twitter's 5 million users have unengaged accounts.

Compare this to Facebook's 140 million active users and 600,000 daily registrants. It seems clear that Twitter is a huge phenomenon, but that Facebook has already broken into the mainstream.

If Facebook stopped growing today and Twitter was allowed to play catch-up, it would take 36 years for Twitter to reach Facebook's current numbers. Conversely, Facebook "grows a Twitter's worth" every 8 days!

In order for Twitter to break into the mainstream its members need to start using the social network more. 38% of Twitter's members have no picture, 22% of members have under 5 followers and 9% aren't following anyone.

These numbers were taken from a HubSpot report on Twitter's status at the end of 2008 and from new facebook user numbers.

Google ‘In Quotes’ and the Presidential Election

I recently found out about Google ‘In Quotes’ and I think it’s a pretty interesting tool. Google grabs quotes from stories that are linked from Google News. These quotations are valuable in understanding where people in the news stand on various issues. If you go to the site, you will see quotes that Barack Obama and John McCain said about issues such as marriage, Iraq, the economy and the environment. I think it’s pretty cool how you can compare their views in an easy format, and in the same place. For a person who isn’t a heavy follower in politics but wants to know what’s going on, this is a good place to go. You can also read quotes from Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, as well as other popular political figures.

Google ‘In Quotes’ has other editions – Canada, UK and India, which allow you to read about the political figures in each country.

Be The First To Know Who Barack Obama Picks As His Running Mate

If you’re a supporter of Barack Obama and you use Facebook, you may already know that he is about to make one of the most important decisions of his campaign, which is choosing a running mate. We’ve all heard who are possible candidates, but if you want to know as soon as he chooses, you can.

This hasn’t been done before, which is very cool. There are two ways to get notified. You can either sign up by going to this special page on his website - http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/firsttoknow or you can also text VP to 62262 and receive a text message when he announces his running mate.

Be part of this important moment and sign up.