Andre Yoskowitz
1 Aug 2012 20:59
Analytics firm Semiocast has reported this week that Twitter has surpassed the 500 million user account milestone.
Despite the large number, only 170 million of those accounts are active.
To be "active," the account must have been modified sometime in the last three months, including adding a new follow or making a tweet. Even changing your avatar qualifies you. Says the company: "We believe this is close to a monthly login rate."
Perhaps more importantly, the milestone figure does not include spam accounts, which Twitter has recently been deleting en masse.
Interestingly, most Twitter users (75.4 percent) use the Twitter's "own access points," including the native Twitter apps and TweetDeck. 27.6 percent of all activity comes from Twitter's desktop apps and through the browser site while 61 percent comes from mobile clients on all platforms.