36% Of Tweets Are Pictures

Sites include diffbot.com , Twitter.com . Published on August 29th, 2012. Written by Anthony West.

It looks like Twitter may have inadvertently killed off the status update. A new study into what is shared on the micro-blogging platform confirms that status updates now account for around 7% of all that is shared on Twitter.

Pictures it seems is the new way in which people express themselves and share on Twitter. According to the study conducted by Diffbot.com, pictures now account for 36% of all shares on Twitter—and are now the largest sharing category on the micro-blogging platform. Articles account for the next biggest chunk of shares (16%) followed by videos at 9%.

The study found also that Instagram and Tumblr are gaining in terms of their data that is shared. Tumblr is shared 115 of the time followed by Instagram which is shared 15% of the time. Twitter will be pleased because it is shared 40% of the time, though this may change as the true photo sharing platforms become more creative about the sharing process.

The Diffbot study showed also that Twitter’s rollout of expanded tweets might have well been the act that sounded the death knell of the 140 character status update. When the 140 character status update carried sway, users were forced to be creative in terms of what they wanted to say. Now all that is gone and the reliability of expressing oneself more with a photo is all but replaced the status update.