Online marketing firm HubSpot has released the results of a report detailing micro-blogging and networking site, Twitter. And if you have joined Twitter this year, you're hardly alone. According to the report, more than 70 percent of Twitter accounts were created in 2008, with an average of 5,000-10,000 accounts being created every day. One surprising number is that 35% of Twitter users have 10 followers or less. To me, that indicates a slew of accounts that were opened out of curiousity, and never used again. That means marketing on Twitter is just like marketing through Digg, Mixx, or any other social utility ... there are plenty of dead accounts, and you should plan your strategy with that in mind.

However, the average Twitter user has about 70 followers. In that sense, if your business accumulates several hundred followers, and they each have 70  followers ... you can see opportunity. Should you decide to use Twitter to market your business, follow some guidelines. Another interesting bit from the study, by day of week, Wednesday and Thursday are the most active, Saturday and Sunday the least.

The study also lists top Twitter locations. The top five are London, USA (users not specifying a location in the US), San Francisco, New York and Chicago. Toronto sees heavy usage, as does Canada. Here is the full report.

HubSpot is also behind Twitter Grader, a way to measure the "authority" of a Twitter user.