AMC’s Breaking Bad, arguably the greatest show on television and one of the best TV series of all time, returned this past Sunday to considerable fanfare and much anticipation.

So how did Twitter react?

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B2B social marketing agency LeadTail, in collaboration with NetBase, recently produced a report analyzing the Twitter activity of 515 digital marketers (143,856 tweets and 69,657 shared links) during Q2 of 2013.

“How Digital Marketers Engage on Twitter” provides insights into how digital marketers describe themselves, which social networks they’re active on, the content they share, and who most influences them.

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Cursing. Swearing. Dropping the f-bomb. Everybody does it. Right?

Back in 1972, legendary standup comedian George Carlin did an iconic gig where he talked about the seven dirty words you can never say on television in the United States. That’s more than forty years ago, but even today many of these words are still not used on the public airways in the U.S., certainly on the major networks (although they get a regular airing on HBO and Showtime). But what about the internet? How often do folks use these expressions online?

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Last week Pew Internet released new data that showed who is using Twitter and other social media sites, with Twitter now enjoying an 18 percent penetration rate amongst internet users in the U.S., up from just 8 percent in 2010.

Perhaps most pleasing for Twitter was that the numbers also revealed that usage amongst all age demographics is also growing, with the 18-29, 30-49 and 50-64 age zones more than doubling in this same period.

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In just a few years Twitter has established itself as an increasingly important medium for breaking news, but what happens when Twitter itself is the subject of that news, and the story is almost wholly negative?

Last week, users responded with anger on reports that female campaigners and MPs had been subject to abuse and rape threats on Twitter, particularly when Twitter, Inc, was initially slow to respond and then failed to provide any practical solution. YouGov tracked the UK public’s reaction to this news between July 28th and August 5th and discovered that attention given to Twitter, which is defined as those hearing anything good or bad about a brand, doubled in this period (from 12 percent to 24 percent of the UK public).

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Nielsen has released a study that, for the first time, provides statistical evidence of the two-way relationship between Twitter and television, inasmuch as how conversation on Twitter about a TV show can boost ratings for that program, and vice versa.

However, while the data has shown that there’s definitely some correlation between a spike in tweets and strong ratings, it’s typically more in Twitter’s favour than the other way around.

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A recent study by Compete in collaboration with Twitter examined the impact of tweet exposure on B2B tech companies.

The insights suggest Twitter is an invaluable tool in B2B lead generation and conversion.

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Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of online adults in the U.S. now use social media, suggests new data from Pew Internet.

This represents a significant rise from when Pew first carried out this research in February 2005, when just 8 percent of online adults were active in social channels.

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Who’s the most influential world leader? It’s a debatable point, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more influential than U.S. president Barack Obama. Obama, of course, is on Twitter – and has been for some time – so by definition he must be the most influential head of state on there, too, right?

Wrong. At least according to one new study, which suggests that it’s Pope Francis who is actually Twitter’s most influential world leader. Pretty good going, when you consider that “he” has only been tweeting since last December.

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What’s the future of Twitter?

It’s a weighty, expansive question that’s proved increasingly problematic to answer in the few years since Twitter first opened its doors to an unsuspecting public back in July 2006. Partly this is because what Twitter is now shifts continuously, making it very difficult to guess where and what it will be in just a few months time.

And partly it’s because you always have the feeling that Twitter themselves don’t really know what Twitter is, which doesn’t really help.

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