Over at Tweetolife.com, the topic of gender and Twitter was studied extensively, and some of the results might surprise you. Before we go down that road, here’s a little bit of information about Tweetolife’s methodology. Their findings are based on a study of over one million tweets (PDF) posted between November 2009 until February 2010. The tweets were separated into gender classifications, which was based on the first name of the Twitter user. That’s fine for all the Rebeccas and Barbaras and Michaels and Stevens of the world, but one would think gender-ambiguous names like Riley, Pat and Kelly could pose a categorization issue.

Anyway, their about page explains further:

In the gender differences section, you can see which phrases are used more often by males or females. These results are given under the “Compare” tab. We also looked at the co-occurrence statistics of phrases, seperately for the two genders. That allows us to take a phrase like “cup” and see what else males (or females) talk about they mention “cup” in their tweets in a distinctive fashion (with respect to the other gender).

While I’m sure the methods used by Tweetolife are an interesting read, but the results of their study are what drives this post. So, do women or men talk about marriage and divorce more? Let’s see what their Gender Differences results tell us:

Another fun comparison is with the obvious choice, sex and love. Let’s see what the results say with this comparison:

Finally, I had to give the men a victory here, so I compared the words “football” and “money.”

What are some other comparisons you’d make on Tweetolife’s utility? Let us know in the comments.

Over half (55%) of the women surveyed in said they participate in some kind of blog activity (publishing, posting comments, reading), and 53% use social networks.

But here’s the kicker: Women use social networks in the purest sense only; 75% use them to keep in touch with friends and family, and not so much as information sources or for making purchase decisions. That’s a major insight considering this is the half of population making 85% of purchase decisions in the US.

In contrast, women rely more on blogs for the business of life, and are twice as likely to use blogs than social networks as an information source (64%), for advice and recommendations (43%), and opinion sharing (55%). Women are 50% more likely to use social networks merely as a means of keeping in touch.

A third of those participating in social networks are loyal to just one and do no other social media activities on a weekly basis. There are likely infinite reasons for that, but it sheds a rather harsh light on why only 20% of women appear to use Twitter.

It could mean that most want all of the networking under one roof for convenience, and only desire one-to-many communication if it involves people they know and trust. It could also mean that Twittering is still considered a medium for celebrities, politicians, and digital hipsters; the survey found that women who themselves blog are significantly more active across all forms of social media.

"Bloggers have a broad reach in the social media population and the survey demonstrates that women who blog are the most actively engaged social media participants — constantly seeking out new ideas and ways to share their opinions about those ideas," said Susan Wright, president of Compass Partners.

And other women are listening, perhaps more than they are to traditional media. Thirty percent are watching less TV, 31% are listening to less radio, 36% are reading fewer magazines, and 39% are reading the newspaper less. 

Numbers like that indicate a huge shift in the media landscape: the sex making the most purchase decisions are rejecting traditional media in favor of online sources. Forty-five percent of women in the survey said they decided to purchase an item after reading about it on a blog; among the women in the more digitally savvy BlogHer network, that number is 85%.

Women bloggers are twice as likely to share a positive purchase experience on blogs and/or message boards and about 40% more likely to share a negative experience. So it’s a good idea to be very, very nice to women bloggers, especially since they are likely to carry significant influence with non-blogging women.

"At a time when the economy is top of mind for more than 70 percent of these active social media participants, women who blog are turning to online resources, including blogs, to help them make their day to day purchasing decisions," said BlogHer cofounder Elisa Camahort.

The results of the survey are concluded according the answers of 2,821 women in the general US population, 1,008 women in the BlogHer network, and 788 women in the iVillage network.  

Users with male or androgynous handles were virtually ignored in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) rooms, according to the research, as chatters (predominantly male) swarmed what they thought were female users.

Assistant professor Michel Cukier and sophomore computer engineering student Robert Meyer conducted the study, setting up bots for one part of the experiment and posing as users with female, male, or ambiguous user names for another in various chat rooms.

On average, female usernames received 163 malicious private messages per day, compared to 4 for male usernames and 25 for non-gendered usernames. The researchers also determined that the messages were not from chat bots.

“The extra attention the female usernames received and the nature of the messages indicate that male, human users specifically targeted female users,” Cukier said.

In fact, according to the report, male members were astute at weeding out the bots and bombarding human users instead. Human users with female usernames averaged 163 messages versus 100 for bots with female usernames. This may have to do with the awkward responses a bot can often offer.

Tamer examples of malicious messages included:

[10:30] [charm] feeling horny?

[10:43] [DanMan] Do u need money? Looking for someone who does not mind providing personal intimate services. $150/hr. Serious offer. 178 74 male 29 here. Interested pls intro?

“Parents should consider alerting their children to these risks, and advising young people to create gender-free or ambiguous usernames. Kids can still exercise plenty of creativity and self-expression without divulging their gender,” said Cukier.

Melanie Killen, professor of human development at UM’s College of Education and associate director of the Center for Children, Relationships and Culture advises parents to begin talking with their kids around age 10.

She says parents should not use “heavy-handed” warnings or ban their children from chatting online, as both strategies might be ignored or could make them even more likely to explore.

“Sit down and have conversations on a regular basis on what they’re doing, what’s involved,” she says. “A lot of kids are very naive about this and feel it won’t happen to them.”

“Boys can be preyed upon too. And boys could be the ones doing it and thinking it’s not harmful,” she said.

The results of the study will be published in the proceedings of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers International (IEEE) Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN ’06) in June.

More Information:
Assessing the Attack Threat Due to IRC Channels

Helpful Links:
Social and Moral Development Laboratory

Center for Children, Relationships and Culture

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