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The number of US Twitter users is set to rise to 26 million by the end of 2010, with an increase of 44 per cent from last year, according to forecasting by digital analyst eMarketer.

The report, 'Twitter: A Strong Current in the Social Media Mainstream', offers a further prediction of online growth to 36 million members by 2012, representing almost a fifth of current US web users.

The social networking site recently revealed online membership figures of 106 million around the world, with just under 40 per cent of registered users tweeting 56 per cent of all tweets from inside the US. New York is also the world's tweeting capital, according to a global social media survey by media monitoring service Sysomos.

With the Library of Congress, America's oldest federal institution, recently announcing a digital archive to hoard every tweet ever uttered for posterity, the micro-blogging tool seems to have cemented its place in the hearts, minds and hardware of the American people.

Traffic to the micro-blogging site has admittedly begun to plateau after a surge in 2009. But Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer and author of the report, insists: 'The service is now firmly entrenched in the social media world. We expect usage levels to continue rising, albeit more moderately, through 2012.'

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