Twitter traffic starts to teeter

Just as lawmakers and agency officials are starting to adopt Twitter as a way to reach citizens, Web measurement firms show traffic to the site is starting to slip.

Nielsen reports Twitter traffic declined about 28 percent from September to October. As eMarketer writes in an article today, the decrease in visitors could mean either falling interest in Twitter or simply a migration to other platforms, such as third-party applications and mobile phone access.

A decline in traffic to Twitter's site doesn't necessarily mean people aren't reading and posting tweets. In August, Crowd Science found 43 percent of Twitter users accessed Twitter through third-party applications such as TweetDeck, and 19 percent said they update Twitter via text messages.

So fret not, political tweeters. Your messages (probably) aren't falling on deaf ears.

Check out The Hill's Twitter Room for the latest from congressional tweeters.