The blogospehere has been all atwitter lately about Nielsen’s latest survey stating that 60% of new Twitter-ers stop using the service after one month.  Many people doubted the number and ribbed Nielsen for perhaps overlooking the fact that many Twitterers use third-party apps to access the site.  But Nielsen checked their math and they’re sticking with their original assertion: 60% of Twitterers leave the site after one month.

I suppose it might be hard to believe that a site that’s growing as fast as Twitter only retains 40% of new users for more than a month, but if you’ve ever run a user-generated content site, you’ll know that 40% retention is fantastic, and most sites would kill for retention like that.  Most users who start a WordPress blog, a Flickr account, a Delicious account, or an account on just about site, try it out for a day or two and never come back.  It’s the nature of the beast.  Further, most users are consumers, not producers, and while that trend is changing over time with the rise of the over-sharing Millennial generation, most users just don’t feel like sharing their stories, pictures, or current status with the world, so they try it out and then move on.

So congratulations, Twitter!  40% retention is awesome, so keep up the great work!