Twitter stats: more users are engaged, one-third have more followers than following, the most prolific Tweeters have around 1000 followers

Barracuda Labs’ annual report contains some interesting analysis of the online space, including Twitter and security issues. A few highlights:

* Only 21% of Twitter accounts are active i.e. at least 10 followers/ 10 following/ 10 tweets

* Even so, there has been an increase in activity from dormant accounts – 40% fewer accounts have zero followers compared with six months ago

* 66% of users are following more or the same as the their number of followers (i.e. you are in the “top” one third if you have more followers than following)

* The most prolific Tweeters are those with around 1,000 followers. Those with more followers tend to tweet less – see chart below.

* Growth in Twitter users, which peaked at 21.17% per month in April 2009, has fallen back to 0.34% in December 2009.

Barracuda calls the period from November 2008 to April 2009 the “Twitter Red Carpet Era”, when celebrities piled on board, with 48 of the 100 most popular Twitter accounts being started in this period, and 49% of all users opened.