Tweeted Links - What do People Link to on Twitter?

Posted by Martin Jamieson | May 2, 2008 .

So, what do people link to on Twitter? It’s a good question and one worth spending some time on.

I’ve got to admit, I’ve been paying a bit of attention to this lately - it’s an interesting exercise, watching the way different personalities interact on Twitter. I follow about 190 people, the majority bloggers, so my observations may not be representative of your network, but from what I have seen, here are the main reasons people tweet links:

To promote their own blog posts
Share interesting content that they have just found
Link to an event that is happening right now
To describe their current location in more detail, or to show everyone what they’re doing
Link to a poll or survey
Other profiles of their on social media sites
To get votes for articles they’ve submitted on sites like Digg.com etc.

I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons, but they are the most common ones I see.

Here’s a snapshot of what the people I’m following have been linking to over the last hour or so:

@shankargan Status: somebody searched for this on google and landed on my blog http://tinyurl.com/5p838v

@TechCrunch Status: Recommendation Ventures And IceTV Team For TV Suggestions http://tinyurl.com/6kbdq4

@chrispirillo Status: Watching / listening to http://www.ustream.tv/calilewis in the hopes that she’ll get rid of my headache.

@ageekgal Status: I’m also Ageekgal on Wikipedia -> http://tinyurl.com/6f4wsr (my userpage; I’m not a cool kid w/my own entry.)

@waynesutton Status: Live streaming from home about twitter project http://qik.com/video/68936

@ChrysUnrau Status: check out lisa’s new look:) http://sugar-bug.com/

@loiclemeur Status: I am considering booking a table with friends at LaFolie tomorrow anybody tried? http://www.lafolie.com/

@mattmikulla Status: Apple is worth 4 times Dell’s market value - http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/17161/

@stejules Status: added: Digg - Yahoo Goes Full Steam Ahead With ‘open’ Strategy http://tinyurl.com/677hzp

@davewiner Status: My Twitter outliner has a scheduler in it. What does that mean? If Twitter stays up overnight you’ll find out. :-) http://tinyurl.com/437tkh

@loiclemeur Status: Got new fat boys at the office, check our CTO testing them http://snurl.com/26qvq @potiontv you look great