Bit Briefs

First, spectacular growth. Then a summertime slowdown. And now, in fall 2009, US traffic to Twitter.com is declining.

According to data provided to eMarketer by Nielsen, traffic to Twitter.com was down a dramatic 27.8% between September and October 2009, falling to 18.9 million unique visitors. Nielsen is the latest in a list of research firms reporting declines at Twitter.com. comScore said unique visitors were down 8.1% in October, while Compete reported a 2.1% decline.

It has not been unusual to see wide shifts in Twitter traffic readings among Web measurement firms, and different methodologies likely account for the varying visitor counts. But one thing is clear: traffic to the Twitter.com Website is declining month over month after a period of huge gains. Read more at www.emarketer.com