Twitter's growth in Australia 'phenomenal'

We know that Oprah Winfrey's brought a lot of new users to Twitter in the U.S., but according to Hitwise, the popular microblogging service is currently seeing some of its most impressive growth outside of America. In Australia, where Oprah Winfrey doesn't command the same kind of daytime television audience, Twitter grew over 1,000% since the beginning of 2009, and its annual growth since last April tops 3,200%. In Australia, Twitter is now the 37th most visited web site.

Twitter Loves Celebrities

According to Hitwise, 38% of the top 50 searches for 'twitter' in Australia include the name of a celebrity. Lindsay Lohan leads the charge, followed by Ashton Kutcher, Miley Cyrus, and Australia's own Hugh Jackman. While Kutcher's much publicized race to 1 million followers increased Twitter's share of daily visits in Australia by 10.6%, Oprah's first tweet only registered a 2.46% increase

Twitter is also seeing similar growth in other Asia Pacific markets. In New Zealand, the official home of RWW, Twitter's share of daily visits increased 305% in 2009, and it is now the 49th most visited web site there, and its growth rate in Singapore is comparable. Only Hong Kong is lagging far behind these other markets.

With celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey helping fuel Twitter mania, the micro-blogging website is soaring to stardom around the world, according to Hitwise.

Twitter's growth in Australia "has been nothing short of phenomenal," rocketing 1067 per cent since the start of this year, reported Alan Long, research director at the Internet intelligence gathering firm.

The number of visitors to Twitter has more than tripled in New Zealand since the beginning of the year, and the website shot up 239 ranks in Singapore to score a place among the 50 most popular online destinations in the country.

"In other markets, Twitter has a growth pattern similar to the US and UK, highlighting that Twitter is a truly global phenomenon," Long said in Hitwise findings released Friday.

As of early this week, Twitter's share of online visits in the United States and Britain had increased by 570 percent and 621 percent respectively since the start of the year.

"It is interesting to note that large jumps in share of visits have been sparked by a variety of events and news items at different times over the past three months," Long wrote.

"But, Ashton Kutcher and Oprah seem to have had an impact in all countries in mid-April."

US talk show megastar Winfrey made her debut on the micro-blogging service a week ago and attracted more than 125,000 followers in just 24 hours. She now has more than 560,000 followers.

Kutcher, star of the television series That '70s Show and husband of actress Demi Moore, beat television news network CNN on April 17 in a race to see who could become the first Twitter user to attract one million followers.

Oprah is the latest celebrity to begin using Twitter, which allows users to pepper their followers with messages of a maximum 140 characters.

Other well-known users include British actor and playwright Stephen Fry, NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, Australian actor Hugh Jackman, and seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong.

Resource: www.readwriteweb.com  &  www.theage.com.au