Neowin.net

According to Nielsen Online, 60 percent of Twitter users stop using it within a month, meaning that just 40 percent (on average) return after a month of signing up to it. Despite a huge increase in unique visitors within the last few months, the number of people who continue to visit the site afterwards is substantially lower than that of the competition.

In comparison to the competition, Twitter has audience retention rates almost 30 percent lower than Facebook and MySpace, who have almost 70 percent retention rates at the moment. However, these figures were taken before Oprah Winfrey, a US talk show host, shone some light on Twitter recently. Prior to that, just 30 percent came back to the site after a month of using it.

Although the social networking website is currently enjoying unique visitor rates which are up 100 percent (this March), many believe that the site will struggle to survive if it cannot maintain a higher level of user loyalty.

The loyalty of Twitter's users has fluctuated considerably, compared to Facebook and MySpace, whose user loyalty levels have been fairly steady, relatively speaking. Over time, Twitter's loyalty levels have gone both up and down almost 20 percent at times, and are currently heading up to 40 percent. One important note to remember though is that the results linked to above are only based on return visits to Twitter.com, as Mashable mentions, which could exclude people who use desktop based applications to send their updates.

But what's your opinion on Twitter, Neowin? Is it a quick and easy way to inform your friends and colleges what you're doing, or is it just another over-hyped networking site, plagued by completely uninteresting status updates? Let us know!