Twitter - Huge UK Growth

New figures show that usage of Twitter mushroomed by almost 1,000% in the UK during 2008, reports the BBC.

According to statistics from analysts HitWise, the microblogging platform has zoomed up the chart of the UK’s most popular websites and now stands at 291.

HitWise pointed to Twitter users’ coverage of breaking news events such as the recent plane crash on New York’s Hudson river as drivers behind its huge growth in traffic.

But Twitter’s future is likely to stay stateside, despite impressive figures in the UK, as it’s the US which boasts the most popular user – President Barack Obama with more than 144,000 followers.



The blogging site has also hit the headlines this week thanks to exposure from some of Twitterati's more famous faces.

BBC presenter Jonathan Ross introduced Twitter to a mainstream audience last Friday when he talked about it on his chat show with top twitty Stephen Fry.


QI host Fry also talked about the sweet side of tweets in this video interview on the BBC site.


For more details on the HitWise story, visit Cybersoc.com.

[Picture - Stephen Fry on Twitter.]