Comments on: Facebook vs. Twitter: Round two with URL shorteners as the judge http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/ Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:37:30 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: evbart http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-140 evbart Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:52:04 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-140 You should do a post on this, it would be interesting to see what percentage<br>of traffic this makes up. Definitely put the link up here if you do. You should do a post on this, it would be interesting to see what percentage
of traffic this makes up. Definitely put the link up here if you do.

]]> By: evbart http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-139 evbart Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:51:02 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-139 You should do a post on this, it would be interesting to see what percentage<br>of traffic this makes up. Definitely put the link up here if you do. You should do a post on this, it would be interesting to see what percentage
of traffic this makes up. Definitely put the link up here if you do.

]]> By: nabeel http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-138 nabeel Mon, 31 Aug 2009 14:46:34 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-138 The base problem is that FB is private, and Twitter is public -- bots troll the Internet, it's just what they do.<br><br>Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to clearly find out if it is a bot, some report themselves, some don't execute javascript (so google analytics won't track them), but some do and you need to look at capabilities of the user agent (does the browser have Flash? is it running at 640x480 resolution?)<br><br>We saw as much as 75% of twitter inbound traffic fell into one of those three buckets and ended up being bots. This is general noise on a major website, but with an individualized bit.ly URL that gets less than 500 clicks a day it can easily be a big %. The base problem is that FB is private, and Twitter is public — bots troll the Internet, it's just what they do.

Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to clearly find out if it is a bot, some report themselves, some don't execute javascript (so google analytics won't track them), but some do and you need to look at capabilities of the user agent (does the browser have Flash? is it running at 640×480 resolution?)

We saw as much as 75% of twitter inbound traffic fell into one of those three buckets and ended up being bots. This is general noise on a major website, but with an individualized bit.ly URL that gets less than 500 clicks a day it can easily be a big %.

]]> By: evbart http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-137 evbart Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:05:02 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-137 No, I didn't. How would you track which part of the traffic comes from<br>bots?<br>Why are bots clicking through your tweets? No, I didn't. How would you track which part of the traffic comes from
bots?
Why are bots clicking through your tweets?

]]> By: nabeel http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-136 nabeel Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:12:37 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-136 Did you take account of bots?<br><br>We ran similar studies over at Loudcrowd, and at first were very pleasantly surprised by Twitters performance.<br><br>However, we became skeptical when we found the bounce rate incredibly high, and it turned out a big portion of the traffic was bots, enough that FB became the better channel. I should do a post on it. Did you take account of bots?

We ran similar studies over at Loudcrowd, and at first were very pleasantly surprised by Twitters performance.

However, we became skeptical when we found the bounce rate incredibly high, and it turned out a big portion of the traffic was bots, enough that FB became the better channel. I should do a post on it.

]]> By: euwyn http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-120 euwyn Tue, 28 Jul 2009 03:52:38 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-120 Evan,<br><br>This is excellent! I'll try to run a similar test over at Wokai. I'm actually not that surprised by the results. Even from an interface standpoint, links are much more prominent on <a href="http://twitter.com" rel="nofollow">twitter.com</a> and any other Twitter app. Links are a little lost on FB, amidst all the pictures, "Joe likes this", the blue comment boxes, long story snippets, etc. I would also guess a large chunk of folks like me still use FB like the good old days, mainly for messaging and chatting with friends and not necessary for its News Feed, no matter how much FB tries to push that on us.<br><br>- Euwyn Evan,

This is excellent! I'll try to run a similar test over at Wokai. I'm actually not that surprised by the results. Even from an interface standpoint, links are much more prominent on twitter.com and any other Twitter app. Links are a little lost on FB, amidst all the pictures, “Joe likes this”, the blue comment boxes, long story snippets, etc. I would also guess a large chunk of folks like me still use FB like the good old days, mainly for messaging and chatting with friends and not necessary for its News Feed, no matter how much FB tries to push that on us.

- Euwyn

]]> By: AlexSchleber http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-113 AlexSchleber Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:33:45 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-113 The result is not that surprising, since Twitter users have been "trained" to practice openness, engagement, and most importantly propagation via Retweets (which Facebook "Likes" cannot match as they don't create the same degree of surfacing, largely because FB users don't (yet) expect to interact with other users' Friends of Friends or their "fanned" FB Pages, etc. to the same degree as on Twitter's wide-open platform).<br><br>Granted Zuckerberg is hard at work at retraining them... <br><br>Nonetheless, smart bit of research using a relatively simple tool like bit.ly. Shows how important it is to get actual confirmation/feedback via stats on how postings to the various communities are received.<br><br>I have been arguing this over on FriendFeed for a number of weeks now, as there currently is no good way to measure clicks on either links shown internally on FF, or the shortened ff.im links shown if FF actions/postings are forwarded to Twitter. <br><br>Ever since I've been using FriendFeed in an accelerated fashion starting about two months ago, this has been an issue, since I have no real way of knowing to what degree my Twitter followers are engaging with my FF materials. Anecdotally, it seems that click-throughs on ff.im are currently much lower than on bit.ly links, in part simply because fewer users are familiar with them, asf.<br><br>Here is the thread:<br><a href="http://friendfeed.com/friendfeed-feedback/481ec19a/we-need-friendfeed-post-ff-im-clickthrough" rel="nofollow">http://friendfeed.com/friendfeed-feedback/481ec...</a> The result is not that surprising, since Twitter users have been “trained” to practice openness, engagement, and most importantly propagation via Retweets (which Facebook “Likes” cannot match as they don't create the same degree of surfacing, largely because FB users don't (yet) expect to interact with other users' Friends of Friends or their “fanned” FB Pages, etc. to the same degree as on Twitter's wide-open platform).

Granted Zuckerberg is hard at work at retraining them…

Nonetheless, smart bit of research using a relatively simple tool like bit.ly. Shows how important it is to get actual confirmation/feedback via stats on how postings to the various communities are received.

I have been arguing this over on FriendFeed for a number of weeks now, as there currently is no good way to measure clicks on either links shown internally on FF, or the shortened ff.im links shown if FF actions/postings are forwarded to Twitter.

Ever since I've been using FriendFeed in an accelerated fashion starting about two months ago, this has been an issue, since I have no real way of knowing to what degree my Twitter followers are engaging with my FF materials. Anecdotally, it seems that click-throughs on ff.im are currently much lower than on bit.ly links, in part simply because fewer users are familiar with them, asf.

Here is the thread:
http://friendfeed.com/friendfeed-feedback/481ec...

]]> By: aweissman http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-112 aweissman Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:03:56 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-112 Great study - it's just one test but interesting to see nonetheless. Thx for publishing Great study – it's just one test but interesting to see nonetheless. Thx for publishing

]]> By: Sue_Anne http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-111 Sue_Anne Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:44:58 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-111 I agree with Antonella. I like these stats for what you were obviously trying to measure, but it would be interesting to see if there was a particular action which traffic source was more conducive to that action. I agree with Antonella. I like these stats for what you were obviously trying to measure, but it would be interesting to see if there was a particular action which traffic source was more conducive to that action.

]]> By: evbart http://evbart.com/2009/06/facebook-vs-twitter-round-two-with-url-shorteners-as-the-judge/#comment-110 evbart Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:02:22 +0000 http://evbart.com/?p=516#comment-110 @ Nathan I agree twitter is more focused on interacting/engaging, while<br>facebook is more focused on your friends.<br>@ Antonella in this case they were just going to a page that had a directory<br>of apps built on the Kiva API, so we weren't trying to drive a particular<br>activity. Would be great to see how users from Twitter convert into users<br>on Kiva, but I don't have those stats :-) @ Nathan I agree twitter is more focused on interacting/engaging, while
facebook is more focused on your friends.
@ Antonella in this case they were just going to a page that had a directory
of apps built on the Kiva API, so we weren't trying to drive a particular
activity. Would be great to see how users from Twitter convert into users
on Kiva, but I don't have those stats :-)

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