CAMBRIDGE, MA – Twitter grew rapidly in recent months, but a Harvard University study found that most users are men talking to men.

The study looked at a random sample of 300,000 Twitter users in May 2009. It found that while men and women follow a similar number of users, men have 15 percent more followers than women. Men also have more reciprocated relationships and the average man is much more likely to follow another man than a woman.

Yet, the study found, women actually have are a majority on Twitter, at 55 percent of users.

The researchers say, “These results are stunning given what previous research has found in the context of online social networks. On a typical online social network, most of the activity is focused around women – men follow content produced by women they do and do not know, and women follow content produced by women they know.”

They ask if the pattern results because both men and women find the content shared by men more compelling than on a typical social network.

The study also found that the typical Twitter user–at least in May–contribute very rarely. The median number of tweets by the typical user over a lifetime on the site is…one.

“This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days,” they say, although there is a contingent of Twitter users who are very active.

The top 10 percent of users contribute 90 percent of tweets. On other typical social networks, the top ten percent of users contribute about 30 percent of the content.

The study authors say Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

Online: http://tiny.pl/399l

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