Teens Don't Tweet? They May Start Soon

"Teens don't tweet." Over the past few weeks, this fact has been reported time and time again by analysts, bloggers, and even mainstream media. Why the obsession with the teenage crowd on Twitter? Perhaps it's simply because adults can't believe that they, not teens, for once are responsible for the birth of an Internet phenomenon. But before all you adults get too comfortable with your Twitter dominance, take a look at the recent data from comScore. It appears that the youngest Twitter users - those in the 12-24 bracket - are now the fastest-growing segment of Twitter's population. So the kids don't tweet? Looks like they may start soon if this new data is to be believed.

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Kids Don't Use Twitter

According to a recent article in the New York Times, teens are more likely to use text messaging than Twitter for keeping up with their friends. Today's teens feel somewhat uncomfortable with the public nature of the communication that takes place on Twitter, and, besides, they just don't see the point in broadcasting what they're doing to the whole world. Yet even without this age group's participation, Twitter has seen amazing success, proving the point that a new technology does not have to be adopted by this young group of users in order to make it big.

Twitter's Youth Sees Growth

Although Twitter didn't attract teens at the outset, that could still change. In fact, it looks like that change may already be underway. A newly released chart from comScore breaks down the age groups of Twitter users and plots each group's growth over time, relative to audience. The most surprising revelation from this chart is the steep incline seen in the age group 12-24. Over the past few months, this group's participation levels have been increasing dramatically.

In reading the chart, a score of "100" means that the age group on Twitter is represented in perfect proportion to how much that age group uses the rest of the Internet as a whole. Go over 100 and that means the age group is represented more heavily on Twitter than they are represented on the rest of the web. In July, those aged 12-24 scored a "121" - a score that was only in the mid-70s a mere six months ago.

Statistics Can be Misleading

But wait - a quick glance at these statistics can be misleading. At first, it appears that the chart simply shows the increasing participation levels of teens (and young adults) on Twitter. While that may be true, it's important to note that the actual number of younger users on Twitter is still much lower than those of their adult counterparts. In fact, the New York Times recently reported that only 11% of Twitter users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore.

Plus, there's the fact that the age group 12-24 represents an odd way of breaking up the demographics. Why not 12-18 instead? The way Twitter's user base is sliced, there's no way to tell how many users are teens and how many are young adults in their 20s.

Finally, the chart is showing audience growth compared to the rest of the Internet as a whole. That's also an interesting way of charting the demographics of Twitter, to say the least.

All that being said, the data seen here is still valuable to some extent. It's interesting to see this market segment's growth, even if it's sliced and diced in this odd way. But does this mean that teens are going to start tweeting sometime soon? Let us know what you think in the comments.

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Social Networks: Boomers Feel Left Out

Even though baby boomers make up more than one quarter of all US Internet users, and even though the majority of this group spends over five hour per week online, a new survey by Burst Media found that only 14% of boomers feel that the content on the Internet is focused on people their age. An even smaller number of boomers (9.9%) thinks that Internet advertising is focused on their demographic. With regards to social networks, most boomers also think that these sites are not focused on people their age.

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According to Burst Media, close to 80% of women and 76% of men under 34 belong to at least one social networking site. For baby boomers, these numbers drop to 50% and 44% respectively. Part of the problem here is that boomers don't think that these social networks are focused on their age group. Only 11.9% of boomers who belong to a social networking site think that the site is geared to people their age.

As the Burst Media survey notes, boomers actively look for different things online than younger users. Young adults look for entertainment news (49%), games (41%), local and national news (37%), and social media sites (36%). Boomers, on the other hand, are far more interested in local and national news (55%), shopping info (41%), and health info (40%).

According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Boomers make up 34% of Internet users in the US, and as a recent report from Forrester Research pointed out, this group is quite comfortable with creating and consuming social media. Social networks, however, still haven't quite found the right angle to draw these users in.

Bonus: Would Your Life be Disrupted if You Couldn't Get Online? 83% Say So

83% of respondents to this survey say that their daily routines would be disrupted if they couldn't get online. 41% even say that their lives would be 'significantly disrupted.' Interestingly, slightly more women (43.9%) than men (39.3%) think that their lives would be significantly disrupted without access to the Internet.

These are pretty impressive numbers, though we have to keep the methodology of this survey in mind. All of the respondents were Internet users, and this was an online survey. If Burst Media had also surveyed offline users, these number would probably have been slightly different.

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Fresh Label Concept Keeps Markets Honest About Expiration Dates [Taste Test]

There've been a few scandals in Japan involving food providers tampering with expiration dates, but if every perishable product had these Fresh Labels, tampering wouldn't be an issue: These stickers can never lie.

The Fresh Label design works by detecting ammonia emanating from the product within and fading out accordingly. Once the ammonia level reaches a level deemed unsafe, the label will no longer be readable. It's a clever system that can't easily be manipulated, and provided it's reasonably cost-efficient, we could see it being adopted in large scale. Until then, follow the same rule as when choosing a possibly-dirty shirt from the laundry pile: If it smells funky, put it back. [Swiss Miss via Serious Eats

A Life, In Data (and Color) [Data]

This is the sum of Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell's life since 2001, when he started digitally capturing and logging every possible moment of his life.

Fortunately, as data has gotten richer—high definition video, for instance, storage has gotten cheaper. Which makes this kind of life archive not just possible, but really, inevitable. What would your chart look like? [Wired via BBG]

Four Tools for Crowdsourced Funding

If you're familiar with the overseas micro-lending space, then you're familiar with Kiva. In 2008, ReadWriteWeb readers chose Kiva as one of their favorite Web 2.0 apps. In 2009, the company continues to thrive.

Kiva initially allowed users to lend to entrepreneurs in developing countries. However, due to the American financial crisis, the company recently extended its mandate to help US entrepreneurs gain access to micropayment loans. As millions struggle to execute on their dream projects, a number of crowd-based funding options have emerged. Below are a few of these tools.

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1. Kickstarter: With the help of Upcoming founder Andy Baio as it's CTO, Kickstarter offers artists and designers the opportunity to raise funding from multiple donation sources. Manhattan-based Ben Smyth raised more than $3000 to install a summer wedding chapel in his storefront gallery. After donations from 49 backers, Smyth has already transformed his space and married 12 couples since his July art opening.

2. Spot.Us: Spot.Us harnesses "community-powered reporting" by allowing the public to commission news stories. Filmmakers and reporters pitch the public on stories, and public donors commission their favorite story ideas. In this way, environmental organizations and under-funded advocacy groups pool their resources to collectively fund issues-based investigations. If a group wants exclusive rights to a story, they must fund at least 50% of that story's production costs.

3. SellABand: SellABand helps musicians crowdsource funding for their next albums. While Bandcamp, Amie Street and MixMatchMusic allow fans to donate after tracks have been laid down, SellABand specializes in the pre-recording phase. The service offsets the high costs of studio time and sound engineering. A number of SellABand artist albums are available on Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon US and Dutch-based Bol.com.

4. Contenture: Contenture is a micropayment service that allows content creators to monetize their sites. Users pay a monthly fee and their money is distributed to the sites they visit the most. Groups like Silicon Florist and Hashtags.org use Contenture simply by adding a line of code to their sites. In this way the most popular service members earn cash for their traffic. TipJoy also offered a micropayment tipping service to content producers; however, the company unfortunately announced plans to close a few days ago.

In addition to our 4 examples, we know there are a number of professionals who are crowdsourcing their funding efforts. From TwitPay to Tipit, let us know your favorite tools and what you're working on in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Lead image courtesy of Bradley Gordon

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6 Simple Ways For Freelancers To Increase Productivity

The best part about being a freelancer is having the freedom to set your own schedule and make your own rules. This, however, can also be the worst part. Without the normal structure of an office environment, many would-be freelancers find themselves wondering at the end of the day where all their time went. Getting the most out of your workday can be tough. So, to help, we present some simple ways that freelancers can increase their productivity.

1. Set A Schedule

Define Your Working Hours

Having set working hours creates a feeling of accountability and puts a premium on your time, making you less likely to waste it. Create a clear set workday schedule and stick to it. If you decide to start work at 8:00 each morning, then get up, take a shower, get dressed and get to work on time. Wandering into your home office still in your pajamas doesn't exactly set the mood for a productive day. Follow this rule and you may be surprised to find your level of productivity increase immediately.

Take Breaks

Studies show that people who take short breaks during the work day tend to get more done . Spending a few minutes away from work will have you returning refreshed and ready to tackle the next task. Go for a walk, grab a snack or take a quick ride to the coffee shop. Set aside 30 minutes or an hour each day at a predetermined time to take lunch. Skipping lunch may mean more time to work, but working on an empty stomach leads to poor concentration. Your focus here should be on quality rather than quantity. Thirty minutes of focused work is much more productive than an hour of distracted work.

2. Make A Plan

Set Goals

Without goals, we would quickly find ourselves bumbling through life aimlessly. Goals keep us on track with a clear vision. Set short-term, mid-term and long-term goals for yourself. For instance, what do you hope to accomplish this week, this month or even this year? Long-term goals help shape your short-term goals. Spend some time thinking about what you want to accomplish and then write it down.

Create To-Do Lists

Use your goal list for the week to create your daily to-do lists. You can use any type of to-do list, whether a desktop app, an online app or just plain old pencil and paper. Regardless of the format you prefer, having your day planned out in order to stay focused is important. Create the next day's to-do list at the end of each day and commit to it.

Break Up Large Tasks Into Managable Pieces

When creating your to-do lists, don't write things like, "Work on productivity article" or "Work on logo design." Be more specific, like, "Do research for productivity article" or "Refine logo concepts." By being specific, you narrow your focus and work more efficiently. Save the vaguer or more general descriptions for your goals list.

Track Your Time

Several good time-tracking apps out there will help you with time management. Knowing if you're using your time wisely is important. Record how long you take to complete tasks: you may be surprised to find how much time you waste in a day. Knowing how long certain tasks take can help you better plan your days, leading to greater efficiency.

Evaluate Your Performance

At the end of the day, look back at how well you measured up to the goals you set for yourself. Did you accomplish what you set out to do today? If not, why? Evaluating your performance is a critical step towards improving your productivity. Set realistic but challenging goals, and honestly review your performance to determine if there's room for improvement.

3. Get Focused

Do One Task at a Time

Multi-tasking has gone from being a computer term to a part of our everyday lexicon. Many people feel these days that we get more done by multi-tasking. This couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, doing one task with full attention is much better than doing two tasks with half as much attention. Spreading your focus between multiple tasks leads only to diminished quality and actually less productivity. Do just one thing at a time and you'll find your productivity go up, along with the quality of your work.

Limit the Time You Spend Surfing the Web

Set aside a certain amount of time each day for Web surfing, and keep it work-related. Use an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) reader to have new content from your favorite websites and blogs brought to you. This is much more efficient than visiting these websites several times a day to see if anything new has been published. If you already use an RSS reader, then you could probably benefit from spending a little time cleaning it up and eliminating feeds that you rarely read. Also, organize your feeds into folders so that you're not browsing non-work-related feeds during the day.

Eliminate Distractions

Allocate certain times of the day to checking email and social media. Rather than keeping your email and Twitter accounts open on your desktop and letting them constantly vie for your attention, decide how much time you are willing to devote to them. For example, you may decide to check and respond to emails twice a day. Handling tasks like these in large batches is best. Which do you think would take longer: reading and responding to 30 emails periodically throughout the day, or reading and responding to them all in one shot?

4. Get Organized

Consolidate Your Email

Many of us have several email accounts for different purposes. Why not put all of your email in one place? If you don't already have one, sign up for a Gmail account from Google. It's free and by far the best Web-based email out there. Once you have set up your Gmail account, you can have it fetch email from all of your other addresses. You can even set up filters to organize emails as they come in so that you don't get confused. Now you can deal with all of your email in one convenient place.

Use Labels to Organize Your Email

Gmail has labels instead of folders. Labels work like folders except that an email can have multiple labels instead of having to reside in just one folder. Set up labels (or folders if you don't use Gmail) with names like "Urgent" and "Follow up" to prioritize messages, and names like "Account info" and "Website client" to stay organized. With Gmail, you can even automatically label and sort incoming email instead of doing it manually.

Update All Your Social Media Accounts at Once

Networking is a great way for freelancers to find new clients, keep up with trends in their industry and stay connected to colleagues. Most of us have accounts on several social media websites, such as Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. Just keeping track of all these services can be challenging, not to mention a huge time drain. Instead of visiting each of these websites individually, why not update them all in one place? With social media aggregators, you can stay in touch as well as post updates to all of your social media accounts at one time, in one place.

5. Set Up Your Office Properly

Respect Your Office

Keep your office clean and orderly. Have only the essentials on your desktop: computer, phone, printer, etc. A cluttered desk negatively affects your mood, which will spill into your work. Working in a constant mess is counter-productive. Take the time to set things up so that everything you need is right in front of you. Searching for supplies, walking to the printer and other small actions can really add up to a lot of wasted time.

Get Comfortable

Make your work place comfortable by opening up the window on a nice day or playing some of your favorite music. Your place of work shouldn't be a dark dudgeon where you feel like you slave away all day. You should enjoy being there. Invest in an ergonomic chair, keyboard and mouse. Back pain or carpel tunnel certainly won't make you more productive. Research ergonomics to learn how to create a comfortable and healthy office.

Go Mobile

One of the best things about being a freelancer is that you don't have to report to a certain place every day. If you find yourself getting in a rut, change things up by working at a local coffee shop, bookstore or park. A change of scenery can go a long way to keeping things fresh, and most cities have a lot of free WiFi hotspots. Just pack your laptop and go.

6. Get Help

Outsource

Consider hiring an assistant. You will more than make up for the cost of filing and invoicing services with the extra time you'll have to focus on the work you do best. Hand your taxes over to a professional; an accountant will do them properly and give you one less thing to worry about. All kinds of services for small-business owners are out there. Which ones make sense for you?

Learn from Other Freelancers

Frequent freelance forums and connect with your peers. A wealth of knowledge and new ideas is shared on forums every day. You could learn such things as how to better deal with clients and what is the best invoicing software. Become a member and reap the benefits of the collective experience of freelancers just like you.

Further Resources

Don't stop here. Check out these other great resources on productivity.

• Freelance Switch
  A great blog for freelancers.
• All Freelance
  Directory of freelance jobs, articles and more.
• Freelance Folder
  A multi-author blog dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and freelancers.

About the Author

Tim Mercer is a photography enthusiast, graphic designer, artist and blogger. His blog digital artist toolbox offers free resources to the digital artist and graphic designer as well as tutorials, artist interviews, inspiration and more.

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How to Use Facebook: 5 Tips For Better Social Networking

Facebook is a social networking site that is enormously popular, but it can be a frustrating user experience. The design of Facebook leaves a lot to be desired and there are almost too many choices for things to do on Facebook. Also some of the more popular Facebook activities are trivial instead of useful - throwing sheep is an oft-quoted example.

Having said that, there's no doubt that Facebook is a powerful social networking tool. So how can you best utilize it and find the good apps? In this post we aim to find out. We'll be focusing specifically on social activities, rather than the many other potential uses of Facebook (work, brand management, etc).

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Tip 1: Update Your Status Regularly

This is a simple thing to do to keep your Facebook profile active. Right at the top of the page there is a place where you can "write something." Usually a comment about what you're doing or thinking. Once a day, or even once every few days, is enough. But update it enough to keep your page interesting.

Tip 2. Use Groups (a.k.a. Lists in Facebook Terminology)

Groups are a core feature of social networking on the Web. To effectively use Facebook, we recommend you set up some groups so that you can filter content. One person who does this very well is our own Marshall Kirkpatrick. Marshall says that he generally scans his Facebook homepage first, then clicks to his groups for family and old friends from school. He noted that "this way most of my time spent on Facebook isn't re-reading the same things I've already read on Twitter."

There is a bit of a trick to setting this groups feature up. Facebook calls this feature "lists," probably to differentiate them from its other Groups feature (which have been usurped by 'Pages' now). Confused? Get used to it, Facebook navigation is awful.

To set lists up for your Facebook account, go to your Facebook homepage and click the "more" link on the left-hand sidebar. You will see a link entitled "Create new list" at the bottom - click on that to create a new group.

Tip 3: Add Your Content From Other Sources (Carefully...)

In this day and age, you are likely creating content in more than a few places on the Web. This ranges from the extreme cases (early adopters who have personal RSS feeds coming out their ears), to those who may just use YouTube and a couple of other niche social websites.

Many early adopters use FriendFeed to aggregate their 'lifestream' of content from multiple sources. Facebook just bought FriendFeed, so expect to see it integrated into Facebook over time. As of now, if you have more than a few content sources and they aren't necessarily the well-known ones like YouTube or Last.fm, then you'll need to use FriendFeed or an equivalent lifestreaming product to aggregate those feeds. But if you find FriendFeed just a bit too geeky (and many people do), then you can adequately enrich your Facebook profile with external content.

One thing we'd caution, which this author took too long to notice: don't pipe your FriendFeed content into Facebook if you aggregate a lot of content into FriendFeed! It quickly overpowers your Wall and will likely annoy the friends you have who also subscribe to your FriendFeed.

To add external content to Facebook, on your Wall page click the 'Options' link on the top right. Then click 'Settings.'

You can then choose to "import stories" to your Facebook wall from a select number of sites: Flickr, Digg, YouTube and others.

You can add content from other external sources to Facebook by clicking the 'application settings page' link further down the page.

Tip 4: Brighten Up Your Profile With Photos and Videos

This almost goes without saying, but adding multimedia makes your Facebook profile interesting and attractive.

If instead of Facebook you usually use a specialist photo site (like Flickr) or video site (like Vimeo), then you'll need to search around for ways to export your files. I use Flickr and didn't find a satisfactory way to export photos from Flickr to Facebook's Photo albums. But via my Twitter network I managed to discovered a plug-in for iPhoto, which allows Mac users to bulk export from iPhoto to Facebook.

Tip 5: Search Out the Best Facebook Apps

Ever since Facebook became a development platform back in May 2007, thousands of apps have been built to add to your Facebook page. As noted in the introduction, these range from trivial (e.g. sheep throwing) to very useful. The best tip here is to find apps that complement your interests.

Our advice is to search the directory for keywords of interest to you. The quality of apps varies greatly and often there are errors (at least I came across them several times when researching this article). When you find an app you like, you can add it to your profile. I added an Art app recently, for example.

You can browse a user's apps by clicking the oddly-named 'Boxes' tab on their profile page.

Tell Us How You Use Facebook!

We hope this post inspires you to spruce up your Facebook page a bit. For more tips, check out Facebook's own Influencers page.

Let us know in the comments what tips you have, or what you use Facebook for every day!

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Build Your Own iPhone App with New Service from Sweb Apps

A company called Sweb Apps has just launched a new service which lets anyone build iPhone apps, even if you don't have a technical background. The service is aimed primarily at small to medium-sized businesses who don't have an in-house or on-call engineering team capable of developing mobile applications. Instead, using the Sweb Apps website, business owners can create their own iPhone application themselves in as little as five minutes, says the company.

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On the newly launched site at swebapps.com, a big orange button reading "Start Building" is all you need to click to get started creating your own iPhone application. Then, only six steps later, you'll have a completed iPhone application ready for App Store submission, a process which Sweb Apps will handle for you, too.

How to Build Your App

Since the service is designed for businesses, one of the first steps is to select your particular industry from the provided categories. At the moment, these include: Restaurant, Retail Store, Business, Non-Profit, Government, Education, Entertainment, and Customization, a category which lets you design your own personalized app if what you're creating doesn't fit into one of the other categories.

From within each of these sections, there are various buttons to choose from. For example, in the "Restaurant" category, you can add buttons like "menu," "reservations," "map," etc. There are even buttons for Facebook and Twitter which allow you to direct customers to your Facebook and Twitter profiles. Sample layouts are provided, too. After picking your buttons, you create your Sweb Apps account and submit the information about your business. The fifth step is to customize the application with your business's personalized info. In the case of the restaurant app, for example, that would mean filling out the menu, listing your hours and address, and so on.

The final step is to submit payment. Prices vary depending on which package you choose. Packages with 4 buttons are $200, 6 buttons are $300, and 8 buttons are $400. In addition, Sweb Apps charges a $50 one-time setup fee and a $25/month hosting fee. For an extra $10/month, business owners can optionally choose to add on a simple analytics package called "App Tracker" which lets you track the number of downloads and button clicks. By tracking this sort of information, it's easy to tell which buttons are accessed most and which are being ignored, allowing you to re-design the app to better engage your customers.

Customizations

While the process of app building is extremely simple, and yes, we were able to create a basic app in a matter of minutes (we stopped short of paying for it of course!), the end result is a somewhat basic-looking application. But there are a couple of things you can do to spruce it up a little. For one, you're able to select your own background color, and this can even be a custom color of your choosing. Sweb Apps also lets you upload your own button images instead of using the defaults provided. This would definitely give your app a more unique and personalized look, so it's worth looking into. If you're not all that handy with Photoshop yourself, it would be a good idea to hire a designer or crowdsource the project through a site like 99Designs or CrowdSpring and have someone create custom buttons for you.

The Best Part: Real-Time Updates!

If anything ever changes and needs to be updated, you simply return to your Sweb Apps account and make the changes there. Instead of waiting on Apple to approve the update as is done with traditional iPhone applications, the updates to Sweb Apps go live in real-time thanks to the company's hosted Content Management System. With Sweb Apps, all the app's content is housed in the company's own database which is why it's able to be updated on-the-fly (and why there's a monthly hosting fee). The possibilities here are endless. This feature allows a business to promote one-time events, specials, coupons, sales, or anything else that would be offered on a limited time basis. This, in fact, may be the best feature of the app builder. Real-time communication with your customer base through the mobile is exactly what applications should provide, but when relying on Apple and their mysterious approval process, the delays involved often prevent this from happening.

Sweb Apps could function as a way for businesses to distribute mobile coupons, too. With buttons like "Photo Gallery" which can be renamed to anything you like (such as "Coupons" or "Specials"), businesses could update their apps with pre-designed mobile coupons, if they so wished.

Lots of Potential, Future Plans

Not that long ago, we wondered why there weren't more iPhone applications for businesses available in the App Store. It's possible that was because the tools to make building mobile apps easy were simply not good enough. With Sweb Apps, though, this could quickly change. Being able to build a mobile application with no technical know-how using a dead-simple onscreen guide is the sort of mobile service we're sure many businesses have been dreaming about. (At least we hope so! We would love to track the sales at a few of our favorite local stores via our iPhones.)

The company plans to introduce more features into their service in the future including premium buttons, Flash-based content (assuming Apple ever approves Flash on the iPhone), in-app advertising opportunities, and more. Next year, the company also plans to launch app builders for other mobile platforms including Android, Blackberry, and Palm Pre.

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The Top Twitter Client Is Still the Web

According to a new study from social media solutions provider Rapleaf, the most popular Twitter client is the web. After looking at the 20 most recent tweets from over 4 million Twitter users, it was clear that updating your status online via Twitter.com is still the dominant way that most people use Twitter, with 65% of tweets attributed to this method. As far as the third-party clients go, only a small handful of clients had enough users to warrant their own slice of the pie chart, and those slices were in the single digits.

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Besides the web, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of Twitter updates, the second most popular way to update Twitter.com is via text message. However, with 6% of tweets sent, this method only accounts for 1/10th as many tweets. Behind text messages, the next two methods are the mobile web and TweetDeck, the Adobe AIR application which allows for groups, searches, and Facebook connectivity in its columnar interface. Both of these accounted for 4% of tweets each. Next came the mobile clients, where iPhone apps proved popular. TwitterFon came in with 3% of tweets, the Blackberry app TwitterBerry had 2%, the iPhone app Twitterific also had 2%, and Tweetie had 2%. However, Tweetie, is both a Mac desktop application and iPhone app, so it's hard to tell how much of their piece of the pie comes from each platform. All other Twitter clients combined accounted for 12% of tweets.

The reason the list shapes up this way is because Twitter clients have significant long-tail distribution, reports Rapleaf. The top 5 clients account for 82% of the tweets while the top 10 account for over 90% of tweets. In total, the study of the 4 million users found over 1900 Twitter clients in use.

Also of note is how popular Twitter is as a mobile application. Nearly 20% of tweets are sent from PDAs or mobile phones.

Changes from Last Year

Last year, here at ReadWriteWeb, we ran our own poll. Although we didn't look at 4 million users as Rapleaf did, we did capture data on 37,248 tweets - a significant enough number to draw some conclusions. Still, since the sample sizes differ, we cannot definitively compare the two polls to each other; we can only observe some general trends.

The first thing that we saw when looking at last year's results is that IM, which accounted for 8% of tweets at that time, doesn't even register on Rapleaf's poll. It's possible that each individual IM client didn't account for a significant enough number of users to warrant a piece of the pie in the Rapleaf chart, but we would be interested in seeing the numbers combined for all the IM clients they tracked to see if there has been a change.

Last year, we saw texting at 5% and Rapleaf says they see 6% of tweets coming in through this method. This consistency is interesting because it seems to imply that Twitter's new users aren't updating their status via SMS more than they're using apps and the web.

We also see several clients which have fallen off the list, including the once-popular AIR app Twhirl which now seems to have lost out to TweetDeck. The Firefox add-on TwitterFox also didn't make Rapleaf's list even though it registered on ours last year with 2% of tweets. Twitterrific, though, remains popular, although it dropped from 7% last year to 2% on Rapleaf's list.

However, in our poll too, the web still dominated with 56% of tweets. These days, despite the growing number of third-party clients available, it's surprising to see that this number has climbed even higher. Perhaps that's because Twitter is now attracting a greater number of "mainstream" users who don't know about things like AIR applications or Firefox add-ons?

Comparisons with Other Studies

It's also interesting to compare Rapleaf's data with the data collected by Twitstat. They looked at 41,516 unique user/client connections over the course of 7 days, then repeated the process to observe the churn rates.

Although they also see the web as the dominant client, they have TweetDeck at #2, twitterfeed at #3, Tweetie at #4, and twhirl at #5. Besides the number 1 spot, that's a much different list. Those differences continue as you delve further into the top 10, where clients like HootSuite, TwitPic, and Ping.fm are mentioned.

Which study is more accurate? While Rapleaf looked at more tweets overall, the Twitstat study's sample is also large enough to not be discounted. So what do all the differences mean? Perhaps it just means that there are so many clients in use today, it's hard to really get a handle on which ones are the most popular at any given time. One thing it does show, however, is that there's one client that reigns supreme no matter how many tweets you sample. It looks like the real winner here is the web.

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Sharein Launches New Features, Becomes Must-Have for Social Media Marketers

Sharein, the new bookmarklet-based service for link sharing, which launched earlier this summer, has just today introduced some new features which further solidify this up-and-comer as the new must-have tool for sharing links on the web. The service, already an easy way to share to Twitter, Facebook, and via email, is most notable for its ability to track statistics like views on the back end, a feature that should appeal to marketers looking for hard data on their social media efforts.

Today, the analytics feature has been enhanced to provide even more data than before, this time with a specific focus on Facebook shares. Also new today is the integration of Tweetmeme and Digg data into shares as well as YouTube stats for video shares. For anyone using Facebook to promote their content, Sharein has just made itself indispensable.

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The concept of a browser bookmarklet for link sharing is neither new nor revolutionary. Many people have become comfortable using services like TwitThis for some time. However, Sharein goes beyond just being a simple time-saver for sharing links and integrates in its back end the sort of analytics that marketers crave.

Better Analytics for Facebook Shares

Today, in addition to seeing the views, reach, and re-shares for links shared on Twitter and Facebook, Sharein is now capturing data on Facebook "likes" and comments. In fact, it's even pulling in the comments' text itself so you can use the service as a one-stop shop for tracking the popularity of items on Facebook.

And as before, the aggregate data tracked using the service is further analyzed on your main "Shares" page where you can see the most popular links for the past week, month, or year. You'll also be able to tell who your most popular sharers are so you can better engage with your core fans or customers.

New Features Help Increase Click-Throughs on Facebook

The way your shared links appear on Facebook has also been revamped as of today. Sharein is (at last!) generating a thumbnail to accompany an article, just like how Facebook's own tool displays native link shares. The shares now also feature data on the number of tweets courtesy of Tweetmeme and the number of diggs on the social news website Digg.com. This extra information can help generate more interest in the shared link as visitors will be able to see at a glance how popular the article is on other social networks.

For video shares, extra information has been added here, too. When sharing YouTube videos, the ratings info and total views are now displayed. Again, this is to help increase click-throughs by highlighting the popularity of the content.

Try it Now!

With all the features being offered by this tool, we're surprised that more people aren't talking about or using the service. However, Sharein is still so new that few may have heard of it yet. We're sure that once Facebook and Twitter marketers, businesses, and any others who want to track their shares on social networks get wind of what Sharein can do, its popularity will increase dramatically. If you haven't tried Sharein yet, you can set up an account today from the company home page.

Discuss

20 Fresh & New Design Galleries

via Six Revisions by Jacob Gube on 8/18/09

Design galleries are a go-to source of inspiration for many web and graphic designers. While there are no shortage of gallery sites out there, a number of new galleries have been launched this year that stand out in some way or have proven to be useful for a specific type of design inspiration. In this post, we'll feature 20 new galleries that may provide just the inspiration you have been looking for.

The Design Inspiration

The Design Inspiration is a unique gallery that showcases websites, logos, photos, patterns and more. Each type of inspiration is separated for easier browsing. The site has already become very popular, and if you browse through the archives you will find plenty of inspiration.

Design Bombs

Design Bombs is a gallery created and maintained by Soh Tanaka. The focus of Design Bombs is to showcase the highest quality web designs, rather than trying to showcase a high quantity. The archives can be browsed by category or color.

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siteInspire

siteInspire is a great place to find websites that are not the same ones that you will find at every other gallery. The archives can be browsed by style, type, or theme. Sites with minimal designs and clean layouts tend to be featured quite frequently at siteInspire.

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Card Observer

Card Observer is a gallery of well-designed business cards that is run by Henry Jones of Web Design Ledger. If you're looking for inspiration for your own business card design or looking for examples of unique business cards, Card Observer is the resource for you.

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Pixel Perfect Portfolios

Pixel Perfect Portfolios showcases the best Flash portfolio sites. If you are looking for some inspiration when working on your own portfolio site or for any type of Flash-based site, Pixel Perfect Portfolios is a good source.

Folio Focus

Folio Focus is my own gallery for showcasing exemplary portfolio sites. It includes portfolio sites from designers, developers, illustrators, photographers, and more.

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jQuery Style

jQuery Style features sites that use jQuery in one way or another. It is a unique and interesting gallery that can help to spark your own creativity and to show what can be done with jQuery.

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Footer Fetish

Footer Fetish is a very new gallery from OnWired that showcases excellent website footers. Many blog posts have been written about footers and providing inspiration of this type, but now there is a site specifically dedicated to it.

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MixCSS

MixCSS is a project of Chris Wallace that uses his Gallery Theme for WordPress. The archives of MixCSS can be browsed by category or tags.

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CartFrenzy

CartFrenzy is a gallery that I launched to showcase the best e-commerce websites. The archives can be browsed by the type/category of site.

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HTML5 Gallery

HTML5 Gallery exists for the purpose of showcasing websites that are using HTML5 markup. Each submission includes "notes" that in many cases will give a little bit of info about how the site is using HTML5.

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Pixel Pumper

Pixel Pumper looks and functions a little bit differently than the typical gallery. You can browse through the sites in a large slider, or choose a more typical grid view.

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Lovely Pages

Lovely Pages is a gallery of web apps and services. The site uses a nice design that avoids clutter.

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Beautiful 2.0

Beautiful 2.0 showcases all kinds of websites with large screenshots. The archives can be browsed by month or by color.

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WP Float

WP Float is a new gallery that showcases WordPress-powered websites and blogs. As WordPress is an extremely popular CMS and other sites like We Love WP have had success, WP Float should prove to be a valuable resource for WordPress designers.

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TypeInspire

TypeInspire is my gallery that showcases inspiration typography and text effects in various forms. This includes posters, brochures, websites, logos and more.

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CSS Luxury

CSS Luxury is a new gallery that publishes a high quantity of featured sites. If you're looking for a place that has a lot of examples, check out CSS Luxury. The archives can be browsed by color, structure, style, or type.

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Blog Design Lab

Blog Design Lab is a gallery that focuses on blogs of all kinds. If you are designing blog themes for yourself or for clients, Blog Design Lab can prove to be an excellent source of inspiration.

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CSS Illustrated

CSS Illustrated features sites with inspiration use of illustration. This design trend can be found in a lot of places, but CSS Illustrated is the only gallery (that I know of) that focuses exclusively on this style of site.

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DesignVector

DesignVector showcases vectors from various designers. The site is still new, so there are less than 100 items in the archives, but hopefully it will continue to be a great source of vector inspiration.

What are some of your favorite new galleries?

Do you frequently visit any of the galleries listed here? Are there others that have been launched in 2009 that you think are worthy or being mentioned?