Cross examining Twitter with its 50 million daily tweets, and seeing such pattern on other social networks and blogs it is obvious that people largely refer to “friends” more than they do to any of the closest relatives they have. We take this for granted in the age of the Social Web. Thus, spotting this on Twitter is not much of a surprise. But, wait for this:

While doing a 2.0 research for one of our clients on pets on the Social Media, we have discovered that people tweet on their dogs more than they do on any other relative they have, but their mom.

We have compared dogs mentions (“dog”) to important female figures and learned that dogs are more tweeted on than “wife”,  “daughter” and “girlfriend” (in this order).

Comparing tweets on dogs to our beloved male figures, we find this order:  dog, dad, husband, father, boyfriend.

Dogs overcome “cat”, “kid”, “child” and they equal to  “son” (which is is skewed by the Spanish word)- they are all less frequently addressed in our tweets.

On our market research we have found clear indications for the importance of dogs in all aspects of our lives. This was highly reflected in the social web as well. Dogs are not only most common among pets in most (if not all)  countries, (western as well as Asian) but are perceived today as an integral part of a family structure from all kinds (couples with kids; couples without kids as well as singles) for many of them dogs complement the family or can even substitute a child. For information about the research scope, and major findings – you are welcome to contact me.

I can’t help thinking about the popular book “My Family and Other Animals“ by Gerald Durrell.

Some more insights:

• wife > husband (yep, we make them talk!)
• boyfriend > girlfriend (boys, they make us talk!)
• mom, mother > dad, father (we deserve that!)

Do you find any more to share?

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Recent analysis by RJMetrics pulled from Twitter’s API may suggest that Twitter is losing popularity:

• The average Twitter user has 27 followers, down from 42 followers in August 2009.
• Twitter is losing 20% from its July peak: The monthly rate of new user accounts is currently around 6.2 million new accounts per month (or 2-3 per second).
• A large percentage of Twitter accounts are inactive, with about 25% of accounts having no followers and about 40% of accounts having never sent a single Tweet. Only about 17% of registered Twitter accounts sent a Tweet in December 2009, an all-time-low.
• About 80% of all Twitter users have tweeted fewer than ten times.

• In line with Nielsen’s April 09 observations (“Twitter users fail to return the following month“) – only 20% of tweeters come back to tweet in their second month.

But,

RJMetrics findings suggest a twist to the above results: cohort analysis reveals tremendous loyalty and engagement from  Twitter users who stay on the system after their first week as members

1. those who do come back tweet so much that it makes up for all the people who left.

2. Users who joined more recently tweet with far greater frequency in their first few months than their 2008 counterparts.

3. With 75 million total accounts, an active user base of around 20% still leaves around 15 million highly active tweeters.

Read past research on Twitter:

• Twitter users share early adopters symptoms
• Twitter’s shopping list: most common “must buy” tweets
• Taking a stock of real time search hype
• Twitter is a masculine and centralized SN

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TrendsSpotting Market Research has completed the release of the “2010 Influencers Series: Trend predictions in 140 characters”. We have followed major trends in six of the most promising categories to dominate the web this year: Social media | Consumer Trends | Tech and IT | Online Marketing | Video | Mobile.

In this series we featured the predictions of digital and marketing experts on the big changes awaiting us.
By adopting the “tweet style” format (limited to 140 characters), we were able to provide our readers with a more focused image of the predicted trends. Many of those trends were actually re-tweeted individually.

Cross Dominating Trends for 2010:

Reviewing the trends across the different categories, 2010 will be a year in which data will be placed in clouds. Increase use of smartphones will lead to new users habits dominated by local information, providing a new exciting (and at the same time – terrifying) bridge between the “real” and the “virtual”. Apps will continue to be hot as consumer goods. Netbooks will be replaced by cheaper notebooks and smartphones. Video (together with 3D and games) will take bigger steps in replacing traditional Television as the main entertainment platform.

There are smart advertising solutions in all the above channels, ready for brands to experiment, measure and retain better ROI. Expect those who dare to put aside ROI – to enjoy an innovative brand image that can last and overcome competition.

Consumers at large, have adopted new expectations from brands and from themselves as shoppers. They are much more aware (price, health, value) and skeptical. At the same time – they aren’t sacrificing any technological advancement.

Final words:

Hats off to the experts who participated and submitted their insightful prediction tweets. We also wish to thank all of you that helped us create the buzz for the reports.

By now, we have enjoyed over 40,000 views on Slideshare.net alone, not including the news mention at the New York Times / RWW, Mashable, eXaminer, and the many of the blogs’ reviews, tweets and Facebook’s notes.

@2010 Social Media

@2010 Consumer Trends.

@2010 Tech and IT.

@2010 Online Marketing.

@2010 Online Video.

@2010 Mobile

Personal remarks:

I find it a challenging experiment, to influence by spreading the trends.
As a Social Psychologist with an advertising background, I realize that the very act of predicting trends, can influence how trends actually catch on. In any case, it will be an exciting year if all the expectations we’ve covered will come true.
Taly Weiss and The TrendsSpotting Team.

Continue following us here and @trendsspotting.

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“2010 Mobile Influencers” is the sixth and last report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“.

Findings: Major trends in 2010 Mobile:

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Mobile in 2010:

# Payment      # Commerce      #Metrics

# Advertising:  networks,  SMS, display, search, premium

# Smartphones: Apple, Apps, iPhone, Google, Android

# GPS      # Location      # Augmented Reality

# Gaming      # Music      # Video

I wish to thank all experts who participated in the 2010 Influencer Series, and submitted their insightful prediction tweets.

Many thanks to the TrendsSpotting team, and most to Apurba Sen, Nizan Malkit, Aviv Sher, and Yotam Shochat who made it all possible in such a short time.

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“2010 Video Influencers” is the fifth report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“.

Findings: Major trends in 2010 Online Video:

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Online Video in 2010:

# TV Everywhere      #live      #mainstream      #search

#data      #direct      #mobile      #standards

#advertising      #30- second

#YouTube      #Hulu      #boxee
2010 Video Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters, by TrendsSpotting

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“2010 Online Marketing Influencers” is the fourth report from the series “2010 Influencers Series: Trend Predictions in 140 Characters“.

Findings: Major trends in 2010 Online Marketing:

Across many of these predictions, we have identified the following trends suggested to influence Online Marketing in 2010:

#social media #games #e-mail

#real time #direct response #measurement

#mobile #geo-location #video

#niche

2010 Online Marketing Influencers: Trend Predictions in 140 characters by Trendsspotting