In an interview on ABC's Ahead of the Curve, Susannah Fox said that status updating services' rapid growth is due mostly to younger users, people who use social networking sites, and mobile users.

"This is a generation that likes to share," Fox said. "They like to stay in communication with their friends and their colleagues throughout the day, and [mobile] status updates make that easy."

Fox said that younger users often think of texting and status updates as "less intrusive" than more direct communication, such as phone calls--"you can text someone or do a status update and they see it when it's convenient for them."

"I think there are as many users for [Twitter] as you might say there are for a telephone or for email. What we see is that young people are using it for all kinds of social activities," such as sharing jokes or videos. Additionally, status updating "has a lot of professional uses: you can follow along with a conference if you're not there, you can see what's being talked about . . . For businesses, you can see what's going on with your brand. There are conversations going on at almost every company, and you can see what people are saying about you through these status updates."

The report also found that internet users with multiple mobile devices were more likely to tweet or use another service. Fox said that Twitter and similar services are particularly useful to those with mobile devices, as a way to ask their network questions or update friends on what they are doing.

"If you want to know what people are joking about, laughing about, talking about, check out Twitter when big news breaks," Fox said.

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