Twitter is dominated by males. Quick: What does that mean?

April 30, 2009 | Matt Marshall | Comments | |

twitter male femaleThe majority of people who send text messages on Twitter are male, according to a study released by Nielsen Mobile, a mobile market research company.

The study which studied usage of SMS during the fourth quarter of 2008, found that some 57 percent of Twitter users are men, while only 45 percent of users of Predicto, another texting community are male. The study was publicized by Predicto, which is a New York based private company focused on mobile games and is clearly eager to market itself to advertisers as a great alternative to Twitter because it appeals to women as well.

Be sure that the Twitter-gazers are going to start asking what this means. The most predictable response is that males are quicker to adopt newer technology (and taking the extra step to learn how to Tweet through SMS might be take that adopter edge). If that’s not the answer, what can explain the urge by men to tweet their thoughts more than women, who have the reputation of being, well, shall we say, more communicative? Or is there another answer, ie., that men feel the need to propagate their thoughts in public more often, as this juvenile video suggests (see bottom of post)?

Oh, and keep in mind that this study was conducted in the fourth quarter, which in my book was still before it really went mainstream. Twitter really first hit the unwashed masses in March.

Twitter’s service has spread like wildfire in the past year, the report found, to take the leading position in terms of share of SMS transactions with carriers such as AT&T and Verizon. During the fourth quarter of 2008, it bypassed other free mobile services including ESPN, Facebook, and Google.

Predicto said it led among paid SMS-based mobile communities and increased that lead over second-place NBC in the second quarter.

Twitter had 812,000 unique SMS users during the quarter: 49 percent of Twitter users are in the 35+ age group; 16 percent of Twitter users earn $100K plus, the report found.

PS. I tweeted this story.

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Matt Marshall is editor and CEO of VentureBeat. Follow him on Twitter at @mmarshall, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

  • Females (as a general rule) aren't quite as "techy" as guys are. Who knows why, its maybe a difference in the brains or something.
  • Peter Antypas
    Twitter thrives on a typical male's need to show off.
  • I don't seem to see many females at all using messenger or anything other that simple phone to phone texting. Maybe I'm living in a secluded forest, but females also seem to stick with whatever is easiest for them, and apparently, that isn't Twitter.
  • itmaster
    Of course, most twitters make over $100,000 and over just like Myspace teens. All these studies say every internet users make over $100,000. Isn't it wonder that we live in America? We can fund any studies and post as a very accurate number. I wonder why Facebook still can make any money with so many $100,000/yr earners.
  • Someone
    16% is "most"? Ummm... bad math.
  • Looks like a niche toy!
  • TrashGoblin
    57% of Tweets sent through SMS are sent by males according to the study, that does not mean that 57% of Twitter users are male. I think the story is taking a slightly obscure statistic and trying to apply it to the Twitter community as a whole, and that's pretty silly.

    Rather than using the stat to ponder gender roles relating to technology in modern society, this statistic is much more a tool Twitter should be looking at and saying "How can we market this particular subset of our service to females who are already using Twitter?"
  • fjpoblam
    Male twits are disinclined to follow twits known to be female due to gender stereotyping on both sides (both the follower and the followed). (Being male, I can't say whether this sense applies to female twits or not.) The female twits I've followed and/or to whom I've sent tweets (on technical or political or ...other totally non-gender-related issues, e.g.) do not respond.
  • Axual
    It means more men are wasting time in this productivity killer than woman. So what else is new?
  • I wonder if they plan to do a follow up survey to see how many of the original respondents are still using the survey. And I suspect the demographics will change as a result of Oprah and others coming online.
  • pvm
    Of these, we need to get a statistic of how many male generated tweets use up their 140 character quota vs females
  • charlie
    If the stats were the other way round, the stereotype of women who just can't shut up would also be dragged up - my point being, you can twist any fact or stat to reinforce gender stereotypes - eg, men are more techy and earlier to adopt, or if it was reversed, women talk more.

    Utterly irrelevant, is my final concl;usion.