According to Hitwise, Britons are out-Twittering Americans. Interestingly, 70% more people in Britain use Twitter than in the USA.  The micro-blogging tool has experienced a 485% traffic growth rate in 2008 alone.   Some interesting nuggets from the study include:

• Broader age range appeal: Twitter has grabbed a broader age range than social networks such as Facebook and Bebo. 

• Key adopter segments: It has captured important early adopter segments such as the 25-34 (the majority of its users) and 37% of its users are in the 45+ age bracket.   (Many of these Twitter users would be the C-level executives in your own firms or target consumer groups).

• Gender parity: Twitter’s UK users are split 50/50 in gender, allowing it to avoid niche sector cul-de-sacs of gender imbalance online and offline, and giving marketeers more to work with in one source.

• London bias demystified: Only 15% of the Twitter UK micro-bloggers are from London, eroding some of the myths that early adopter tribes are prevalent in global commerce cities such as London or colonise creative class and entrepreneurial hotspots.

I find this fascinating stuff.

What reasons do you think might partially explain the British propensity to Twitter?  Having just returned from the USA, I can vouch that Americans are less apt to text than Britons (possibly for economic reasons).  Could it also be echoes of cultural stereotypes about how different (but similar) cultures approach communications tools?  Maybe something else.

What are your thoughts on why the British are out-Twittering Americans?  More important, how can these learnings be applied to your communities, core programs and clients?