First State of the Twitosphere in Costa Rica

A while ago a commenter on this blog asked if I could also analyze the twitosphere in his country, Costa Rica. Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the east and south, the Pacific Ocean to the west and south and the Caribbean Sea to the east (source : Wikipedia). I have never been to Costa Rica, so I do not have personal memories or opinions on this country. Nevertheless, I found it a good idea to have a closer look at the usage of Twitter in Costa Rica.

The first question in such an analysis is the number of Twitter users in Costa Rica. Twitter user search is temporary disabled, so I cannot inform you on the number of Twitter users in Costa Rica according to Twitter itself. Twitdir reports 338 Twitter users for location Costa Rica.

Based on the location info in the Twitter profiles, I was able to find 507 Twitter users in Costa Rica, still active users. Persons who have closed their Twitter accounts are not included in this number. Because the number of Twitter users not mentioning a true location in their Twitter profile is estimated at around 50%, the actual number of Twitter users in Costa Rica will probably exceed 507. With a population of 4.133 million people (source Wikipedia), the Twitter user density for Costa Rica is one Twitter account for every 8,152 inhabitants.

History of the Twitter accounts in Costa Rica
The graph below shows the history of the Twitter accounts from Costa Rica. The graph is based on the date of the first message posted on each of the public Twitter accounts. Twitter users who haven't published any messages and Twitter users with a private profile (their messages are only visible for their approved followers) are not included in this graph. Twitter started late in Costa Rica. The oldest Twitter users date back from March 2006. Only 8 months later first Costa Ricans started using Twitter.



Oldest Twitter accounts from Costa Rica
http://twitter.com/gringuitica - Erin - first message on January 11, 2007
http://twitter.com/darcia - David Arcia - first message on February 14, 2007
http://twitter.com/lizrincon - Liz Rincon - first message on March 16, 2007
http://twitter.com/Gorileo - Rogelio Umaña - first message on March 18, 2007
http://twitter.com/soloesteban - Esteban Solorzano - first message on March 20, 2007
http://twitter.com/405 - Cuatro Cero Cinco - first message on March 22, 2007
http://twitter.com/MariHo - Mario HB - first message on March 28, 2007
http://twitter.com/nityananda - Nityananda das - first message on March 29, 2007
http://twitter.com/conejita236 - Angel Ackermann - first message on April 6, 2007
http://twitter.com/BarryStev - Barry Stevens - first message on April 22, 2007
http://twitter.com/Toxicomaniac - toxic - first message on April 26, 2007

Private or public
59 Twitter acounts from Costa Rica or 12% have chosen to keep their updates only available to their friends.

Number of following
A Twitter user can choose to follow one or more other Twitter accounts, called "following". 84 Twitter accounts from Costa Rica or 17% do not follow other Twitter users. An average Twitter account from Costa Rica follows 31 Twitter accounts.



Top 10 following
http://twitter.com/iecr - Spanishinstitute - 2,000 following
http://twitter.com/muchacostarica - MuchaCostaRica.Com - 1,727 following
http://twitter.com/NicoPisani - NicoPisani - 655 following
http://twitter.com/Gorileo - Rogelio Umaña - 493 following
http://twitter.com/iCostaRicaTV - iCostaRicaTV - 425 following
http://twitter.com/jenfos - jenfos - 418 following
http://twitter.com/ReverendDoctor - TheReverendDoctor - 418 following
http://twitter.com/remediosgraphic - remediosgraphic - 310 following
http://twitter.com/AlexOtarola - Otárola - 213 following
http://twitter.com/stevekatz - stevekatz - 212 following

Number of followers
A follower is someone who has indicated another Twitter account as following and receives all updates of that other Twitter account. 40 Twitter users from Costa Rica or 8% have no Twitter followers at all, meaning that no one else on Twitter has indicated this account as following. The messages published by these Twitter users are only read by themselves (and by search engines). An average Twitter user from Costa Rica has 24 followers.



Top 10 followers
http://twitter.com/muchacostarica - MuchaCostaRica.Com - 606 followers
http://twitter.com/Gorileo - Rogelio Umaña - 518 followers
http://twitter.com/NicoPisani - NicoPisani - 443 followers
http://twitter.com/jenfos - jenfos - 283 followers
http://twitter.com/iecr - Spanishinstitute - 283 followers
http://twitter.com/stevekatz - stevekatz - 261 followers
http://twitter.com/SEOCharlie - SEOCharlie - 236 followers
http://twitter.com/fusildechispas - cristian cambronero - 196 followers
http://twitter.com/remediosgraphic - remediosgraphic - 158 followers
http://twitter.com/gringuitica - Erin - 153 followers

Updates
An update is the term refering to Twitter messages published by a Twitter users. These are also called tweets. The average number of updates for a Twitter users from Costa Rica is 118. 44 Twitter users (or 9%) are still waiting for their first message to be published. Below you can find the top 10.



Top 10 updates
http://twitter.com/Gorileo - Rogelio Umaña - 3.715 updates
http://twitter.com/berylcorea - berylcorea - 2.883 updates
http://twitter.com/reiterstahl - RQR - 2.248 updates
http://twitter.com/SEOCharlie - SEOCharlie - 1.957 updates
http://twitter.com/OzaCR - OzaCR - 1.804 updates
http://twitter.com/willvv - Will Vásquez Vásquez - 1.621 updates
http://twitter.com/zoncho - Carlos Murillo - 1.461 updates
http://twitter.com/yeco - Yeco - 1.337 updates
http://twitter.com/olesha - olesha - 1.209 updates
http://twitter.com/Rafa - Rafael Gonzalez - 1.207 updates

Degree of activity
37% of all Twitter users from Costa Rica have publised at least one message in the last 7 days.
30% of all Twitter users from Costa Rica have not published a message for more than a month.
12% of all Twitter users from Costa Rica have published at least message on in the period between 7 and 31 days (older than a week, but in the last month).

12% of all Twitter users from Costa Rica is private, so no information on their degree activity is available.
On 9% of the Twitter accounts from Costa Rica not a single message has been published.

Conclusion
Costa Rica is a relatively small country in Central America. It is not known for a significant contribution to what's happening on the internet or in the blogosphere of twitosphere. Neverthelessm there is an active Twitter community in Costa Rica. This community started rather late, but it is growing at a relatively high speed.