New research has suggested that most new users of Twitter do not return to the website after one month.

The figures, released by Nielsen Online, showed that over 60 per cent of those signing up to the microblogging service make no further visits to Twitter.com after a month, giving it a retention rate of about 40 per cent.

Vice-president of primary research for Nielsen Online David Martin said that this could spell bad news for Twitter, claiming that a high retention rate is a "prerequisite" to obtaining a large internet audience, although he conceded that it does not necessarily guarantee high traffic levels.

He remarked that when MySpace and Facebook were in their own emerging phases, their retention rates were twice as high as Twitter's current rate.

"When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up and both sit at nearly 70 per cent today," Mr Martin added.

Despite this, Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim has claimed that the conclusion drawn by Nielsen Online is the wrong one because figures from TwitStat suggest that fewer than three in ten Twitter users access their feeds through the main site, with most preferring to use third-party services and applications to do so.