There’s bad news on two fronts for social media giant Twitter ahead of its initial public offering, with up to one-third of its account holders no longer using the service, as its online music service Twitter #Music is set to close.
According to a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 36% of users who have created a Twitter account say they no longer use it, with a further 7% saying they have now closed their account.
The figures are significantly higher than those for Facebook, where only 7% say they no longer use the social networking giant and just 5% say they have shut their accounts.
The survey had a sample size of 1067 Twitter users and 2449 Facebook members, with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points on the Twitter figures and 2.3 percentage points for Facebook.
Overall, Twitter claims 232 million “active” users who use the service at least once a month.
Twitter is also strongly considering killing off its Twitter #Music service just six months after its launch.
In March, Twitter purchased Brisbane-based music sharing start-up We Are Hunted, forming the basis of its music app.
However, the service was never released for Android and, after a strong debut, languished in Apple’s iTunes music store, unable to gain a critical mass of users.
AllThingsD reports the app has fallen from the number six spot on Apple’s free downloads chart after its April launch to number 1672, according to Onavo.
It also has the dubious honour of being the 264th most popular app in the iTunes app store.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
