Twitter riding wave created by celebrities

The punting of social networking site Twitter by celebrities such as DJ Fresh will make it more popular than Facebook and Mxit in the near future.

This is according to the results of the Mobility 2011 survey, released in Johannesburg yesterday. The respondents were 1203 South Africans of 16 and older, living in all provinces except Northern Cape. The survey was undertaken by technology research organisation World Wide Worx.

The results showed that though Mxit had a 24% share of cellphone users, and Facebook 22%, Twitter would "almost" catch up with Mxit by the end of the year.

World Wide Worx managing director Arthur Goldstuck said yesterday that the widely accepted figure of 100000 South African Twitter users was well below the true number, estimating that there were probably nearer a million.

It was possible, he said, that the rise of Twitter was attributable to the increase in BlackBerry users - the smartphone was found to be the first choice of people considering buying a cellphone, pipping long-time leader Nokia.

"Nokia doesn't seem to have been able to respond to what's happening in the market," said Goldstuck.

The survey found that manufacturers LG and Motorola were "disaster stories".