I ran across some interesting new Twitter statistics this week.

For instance, in “Can Twitter Make Money?,” from the new issue of MIT’s Technology Review (subscription required), author David Talbot reveals both the enormous potential of Twitter for real-time communication and the formidable challenges the company faces to create more value and find a viable business plan.

In the article, Talbot reports that one study of a sampling of 2,000 tweets found the content to be:

• Pointless babble (41 percent)
• Conversational (38 percent)
• Pass-along value (8.7 percent)
• Self-promotion (5.9 percent)
• Spam (3.8 percent)
• News (3.6 percent)

Also, it was interesting to see this data which categorized users by number of tweets:

• No updates (41.3 percent)
• 1-9 updates (39.3 percent)
• 10-19 (5 percent)
• 20-99 (8 percent)
• 100-499 (4.4 percent)
• 500+ (2.6 percent)

And these numbers, which grouped users based on follower count:

• No followers (24 percent)
• 1-10 (57 percent)
• 11-20 (8 percent)
• 21-100 (8 percent)
• 101-500 (2 percent)
• 500+ (1 percent)

This week Barracuda Networks also published new findings which indicate that less than one-quarter (21 percent) of Twitter users are actual True Twitter Users. (The study defines a True Twitter User as a person who has at least 10 followers, follows 10 people, and has updated their status with at least 10 tweets.)

Like companies in the Fortune 500 and Inc. 500, I’m experimenting with Twitter as a way to build business –plus, there’s no doubt that it’s simply a lot of fun. But, this data clearly shows that Twitter is one aspect of social media that is still evolving.