Twitter: Open and By The Numbers

Posted on 14 April 2010 by Kathy E. Gill

This morning, @biz (Biz Stone) and @ev (Evan Williams) kicked off Twitter’s first official developer conference, Chirp, with some facts and data and a stunning announcement related to the Library of Congress.

First, the numbers. There are 105.8 million registered users but 180 million monthly unique visitors to the website. The deduction: non-registered users read tweets. And we know that registered users read tweets primarily from other devices. Williams noted that Twitter is currently handling 3 billion requests a day; this API-driven traffic is equivalent to Yahoo, he said, noting that no other major service is this distributed.

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FCC Issues New Broadband Stats

Posted on 23 February 2010 by Kathy E. Gill

The FCC has issued a report (pdf) that claims that 78 percent of adults in the U.S. access the Internet and that 67 percent have broadband at home. Before you go jumping up-and-down in excitement about these adoption rates, there are serious caveats and questions.

The biggest caveat is how the FCC defined broadband: Continue reading →

Chart Junk: AP Deceives With Job Satisfaction Graphic

Posted on 5 January 2010 by Kathy E. Gill

The data are troubling, no need for embellishment. In 1987, 61.1 percent of Americans were satisfied with their jobs. Over a 22 year period, that percentage has dropped to 45.3 percent. But the AP chart that accompanied the story in today’s (printed) Seattle Times implied that there was a four-fold difference between 1987 and 2009!
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When Is A Presentation A Form of Journalism?

Posted on 7 April 2009 by Kathy E. Gill

The answer depends on how you define “journalism.” But I think that a presentation like this one qualifies as journalistic criticism, which is a form of journalistic commentary:

Counting Online Video “Views”

Posted on 12 February 2009 by Kathy E. Gill

In a talk I gave in January, I said that I did not know what online video statistics mean. A few people in the audience insisted that YouTube counted a “view” only if the clip played in full.

They were wrong.

Not only were they wrong, a study from last fall (2008) suggests that most video “views” can be measured in seconds.

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Category Archives: Statistics

Twitter: Open and By The Numbers

FCC Issues New Broadband Stats

Chart Junk: AP Deceives With Job Satisfaction Graphic

When Is A Presentation A Form of Journalism?

Counting Online Video “Views”

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