Photo pin-up site Pinterest spiked in popularity over the past year, according to the survey, a poll of 1,445 Internet users aged 18 and older. About 21 percent of respondents said they employ the service, up sharply from 15 percent in a similar survey conducted a year ago.
The figure was 22 percent for LinkedIn and 18 percent for Twitter, holding roughly steady from a year ago. About 29 percent of the blacks surveyed by Pew made use of Twitter, well above 16 percent for whites and Hispanics, the study showed. (r.reuters.com/fyc75v)
Twitter ranks higher than Pinterest in terms of engagement, however: 46 percent of users surveyed go onto the online messaging service daily, versus 23 percent for Pinterest and just 13 percent for LinkedIn.
Industry experts have said Twitter is less intuitive than Facebook and thus can turn off users, curtailing its growth as a mainstream social media platform.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in October, 36 percent of 1,067 people who have joined Twitter say they do not use it, and 7 percent say they have shut their account. In contrast, only 7 percent of 2,449 Facebook members report not using the online social network, and 5 percent say they have shut down their account.