1. The document analyzes Twitter use among early adopters who joined from 2006-2007 and compares them to more mainstream users who joined in 2009. 2. It finds that early adopters tended to use Twitter experimentally and asocially at first, while mainstream users engaged socially from the beginning. 3. The use of social mechanisms like @replies, hashtags and retweets emerged more quickly among mainstream users and helped them integrate into the Twitter community more rapidly than early adopters.

1. Liminality and Communitas in Social Media: The Case of Twitter Jana Herwig, M.A. Dept. of Theatre, Film & Media Studies University of Vienna Email: [email_address] Twitter: @digiom Blog: digiom.wordpress.com

2. Hum? Tendovaginitis Microlearning Conference Innsbruck Holiday My Twittering according to Tweetstats.com

3. Rite of Passage (Turner): 1 - Subject is stripped of its social status 2 - Liminality: Subject goes through a transitional phase marked by chaos, anti-structure and egalitarian relations between initiands (communitas) 3 - Reintegration with an elevated status

4. 0 friends 0 followers 0 updates Detachment from Social Status

5. Chaos and anti-structure

6. Levelling of hierarchies pic by @mimimixer

8. Symbols of inclusion/exclusion Log-in Sign-up

9. Sign-up? (how cynical…)

10. Optional anonymity: No real name check… yet (Project Verified Accounts) Creation of liminoid subject

12. Example 1: With its more than 2 million followers, the account @oprah receives several replies in an hour, but has replied just six times in its first seven months – just once to a non-celebrity.

13. Example 2: Although the informal ‘Du’ is typically used between German-speaking Twitter users, the account of Austrian TV-anchor @ArminWolf is mostly addressed with the formal ‘Sie’.

15. Sample 1: signed-up Oct’06 - Mar‘07 94% (15 out of 16) went on a hiatus of ≥ 28 days, 75% (12) did so in first 2 months Sample 2: signed-up Mar’09 - Jul‘09 9% (1 out of 11) stopped updating for ≥ 28 days (max. time on Twitter: 6 months)

16. User A

17. User B

18. User D

19. User G

20. User K

21. User L The used visualization tool tweetstats.com starts with the first update; User L wrote the first update 600 days after signing-up.

22. User O (‘Lead User’) Video with all activity patterns in sample 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhPdQaZ_Wu4

26. Sample 1: signed-up Oct’06 - Mar‘07 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 12.5% women (2 of 16 active users, randomly identified) Sample 1: signed-up Oct’06 - Mar‘07 ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 91% women (10 of 11 active users, randomly identified)

36. Questions or Feedback? Send an email to jana . [email_address] . ac .at or, preferably, post a comment on my blog. You can also download the draft paper (with data, comment and annotations) from there: http: //digiom . wordpress . com/2009/10/05/coming-to-grips-with-twitter-200607-vs-2009 Short link: http: //wp . me/peBnE-u4 Longer version of this presentation (optimized for lack of audio) is on slideshare, username anaj