Don't forget Ashton is going to be on the Twitter suggested users list, which means a large number of his followers will have signed up to Twitter once, followed a few suggested users, then left the site never to return. I imagine people with an "organic" follower list get a higher rate of tweet reads/click throughs.

Something else to note, though, is that a large number of twitter users use twitter clients. This means that the traffic looks direct when it is, in fact, from twitter.

Good point, but I was measuring through bit.ly links, so lost referrals isnt as much of an issue

Also keep in mind that most people don't read every tweet. Even people with relatively few follows will let tweets flow by for days or weeks without reading them and just pick up again whenever.

I think another issue is smart phones. This is the type of site that I wouldn't even try to use with a phone...I would want my laptop to view it. Most people get their tweets on their phone, so they are less likely to follow this kind of link when they see it, and they are very unlikely to look back when they are on their computer.

brings up a good idea for a mini feature, is there a service that will make a list of links people you follow on twitter have posted (possibly a nice ui for images/videos etc as well)

would probably take a few hours to code, if I cant find one then I think I will give it a shot

Flipboard.

that looks nice, probably not worth the £800 price mark though :)

feedly.