What Twitterers Want: News

Twitter can be a lot of things for a lot of different people. However, according to online ad network

"Given Twitter's unique ability to bring information instantly to large numbers of people, it's not surprising that news leads the way," says Chitika. "From being the first to publish pictures of a Turkish Airlines plane crash to the social network's breaking of US Airways Flight 1549's dramatic crash into the Hudson River earlier this year, Twitter's instantaneous and collaborative nature has made it out to be the bleeding edge of all news."

"Compare Twitter's results, though, with older, more established social network Facebook, and the value and perception of Twitter's speed become more obvious," the network adds. "While news sites do receive a good deal of Facebook's referrals, they lag behind tech and lifestyle sites - tech sites dominate Facebook's traffic with over 33% of the network's referrals going there."

Here's how Chitika's numbers for Facebook traffic look:

On a semi-related note, a new real-time news discovery site called