Comments on: Oprah Quits Twitter: What Does it Mean?

By: robsaker

robsaker — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:47:08 +0000

Thanks Doug. Yep, the survey was focused towards the digerati. I was primarily interested in the intersection between Oprah and Twitter users, so the key data point there was overlap. There is bias there, but I don't think it's material (would've needed that group to provide fact).

By: robsaker

robsaker — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:58:50 +0000

Oprah.com\\'s online audience is a fair representation of her potential that would use Twitter. That\\'s not a stretch. A user that visits Oprah.com is likely to be a viewer of the show, but has a base technical ability required to leverage Twitter. Are there Oprah viewers that don\\'t visit Oprah.com? Absolutely, but we have no logical reason to believe the differ from the audience that does visit Oprah.com. Using Oprah.com\\'s numbers are also an acceptable assumption in they be more similar to the actual segments of her audience that would be willing to try Twitter.

I would challenge the argument that stay-at-home mom\\'s aren\\'t enamored with computers. They may not be as engaged as 20-somethings, but experience working with clients in this segment shows this group consistently demonstrates interest and a stronger need to socialize, two key drivers for the adoption of social media.

Regardless how you read the tea leaves, the differences you mention in segments were in fact one of the main reasons for the post. Oprah\\'s audience is aging and she is distancing herself from new viewers. My argument is that Oprah, more than Twitter, would have benefited from the ability to reach and engage new viewers.

By: ericdionbaker

ericdionbaker — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:31:57 +0000

Rob – Great post! My response would not fit here, so I posted it on my blog instead:

http://reconstructingedb.wordpress.com/2009/05/05...

Great post, bro!!

By: Doug Schumacher

Doug Schumacher — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:28:07 +0000

Really good post, Rob. I've actually been looking at some Twitter figures myself lately for a possible article — comparing how celebs use it vs new media people.

I like how you brought in the Quantcast figures to project potential future growth, especially regarding Oprah and her current viewership demos.

Of your survey (understandably non-scientific), curious if that was centered towards new media people, as the 84% using Twitter regularly seems quite high.

Really liked the post. (preferred your previous design template, though

doug

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:10:48 +0000

I disagree that "Oprah.com’s online audience is a fair representation of the potential audience that would use Twitter." The main overlap you have is gender, but apart from that demographic, nearly every other attribute of Twitter users is contrary to Oprah fans: Twitterers tend to be young, upwardly mobile, employed, and socially active. Oprah's audience is dominated by middle-aged, stay-at-home moms, who aren't nearly as enamored with computers as those 20-somethings that have to stare at one all day. Is there some overlap? Yes, but not as much as you think. Plus, as Oprah herself ages, her audience will tend to age with her (this is a common phenomenon in persistent television personalities), moving her further away from Twitter's true growth engine: college students & young professionals.

Plus, there's the issue with your convenience sample, which isn't very representative of the larger population, so extrapolating your findings from it to the Internet at large is unlikely to be very accurate.

Sorry to be a nattering nabob…I appreciate the effort and like most of what's in the post…just those two things didn't sit right with me.