Twitter Users Talk About Themselves, Other Guys

June 4, 2009, The Wall Street Journal — At this point, most everyone may know what Twitter is, but who’s using it, what they’re saying and who they’re saying it to are increasingly research fodder.

Lexicographers at Oxford University Press released findings today, based on 1.5 million tweets from January to April, showing that the average message was 15 words, with an average of 10.69 words per sentence and 1.4 sentences per tweet. Ten percent of tweets contain a question, says Oxford, publisher of the Oxford dictionary and other reference works.