Social networking site Twitter has recorded massive growth in the first few months of the year, according to analysis firm Hitwise.
Research director Alan Long has said that the site’s growth in Australia “has been nothing short of phenomenal”, and that media coverage is helping the site’s surge in popularity.
The number of Australian visitors to the site has surged 1067% since the start of this year, while the number of visitors in New Zealand has tripled.
“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 a Hitwise report.
The new figures also show that the number of online visits in the US and Britain has increased by 570% and 621% respectively.
The massive growth is being fuelled by the number of businesses using the service, but also by a CNN competition which challenged celebrities to gain the most followers in a short period of time. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey debuted her Twitter account and amassed 125,000 “followers” in under 24 hours.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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