Twitter beat Facebook and Google+ as the fastest-growing social network in 2012, suggests a new study from GlobalWebIndex, Mediabistro reports.
Overall, Twitter is now ranked fourth amongst all social networking sites in total active users, with Google+ securing a surprising second place.
More than one-fifth (21 percent) of the global internet population now actively use Twitter on a monthly basis, good enough for a third-place tie with YouTube, but well behind Facebook (51 percent) and, surprisingly, Google+, which now boasts a 27 percent active user share.
Facebook grew 33 percent last year to a base of 693 million “active users” in the 31 global markets tracked by Global Web Index. Meanwhile, Twitter’s active user base increased 40 percent to 288 million users in those markets, while Google+ grew 27 percent to 343 million users.
