The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches to the west-southwest, researchers said.

The quake also shifted other parts of South America, as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza, Brazil.

The results were reached via global positioning satellite measurements taken before and after the February 27 quake by teams from The Ohio State University, the University of Hawaii, the University of Memphis and the California Institute of Technology, as well as agencies across South America.

NASA scientists have also credited the quake with shifting the Earth's axis enough to create shorter days. The change is negligible, but still worth noting: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

A large quake — like the one that hit Chile's Maule region — shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.

When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day.

“Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation,” Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said while explaining the phenomenon in 2005.

Despite the tragedy of the earthquake, which killed hundreds of Chileans, scientists see opportunities to gain valuable information in the aftermath.

“The Maule earthquake will arguably become one of the, if not the most important, great earthquakes yet studied,” said Ben Brooks of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii.

“We now have modern, precise instruments to evaluate this event.”

via Chile quake moves city more than 10 feet – CNN.com.

Facts About Child Abuse

84 percent of prison inmates were abused as children.

One in three girls and one in five boys are sexually abused by an adult at some time during childhood. (Most sexual abusers are someone in the family or someone the child knows, not the proverbial stranger with a lollipop.)

Families with four or more children have higher rates of abuse and neglect, especially if their living conditions are crowded or they live in isolated areas.

More than 80 percent of abusers are a parent or someone close to a child. Child abuse is far more likely to occur in the child’s home than in a day care center.

One in thirteen kids with a parent on drugs is physically abused regularly. (Drug and alcohol abuse in the family makes child abuse about twice as likely.)

One out of ten babies born today are born to mothers who are abusing drugs. Drinking and smoking heavily during pregnancy also endangers the health of unborn children.

What Kids Can Do:

Know your rights. Nobody, including your parents, can:

Hit you hard enough to cause an injury.

Leave you by yourself for a long time.

Force you or tell you to have any kind of sex with anyone.

Anyone who does any of these things has a problem. They need help.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't believe anybody who says something bad will happen if you talk. Things can only get better than they are.

If you know a kid who is being hurt physically or sexually, call 1-800-4-A-CHILD and talk about it. A counselor will tell you just what to do.

Some Signs of Child Abuse

Emotional:

A child who is apathetic (just doesn't care).

A child who suffers from depression.

A child who won't take part in play or school activities.

A child who is often hostile or aggressive.

A child with a loss of appetite.

A child who compulsively overeats

Neglect:

Any of the signs above.

A child who is hungry much of the time.

A child wandering outdoors unsupervised.

A child unsuitably dressed for the weather.

A child who is continually dirty or wearing the same soiled clothes.

A child who shows up early or stays late at school.

Physical:

Bruises or welts shaped like an object (belt buckle or electric cord).

Bruises in unusual places (back, eyes, mouth, buttocks, genital areas, thighs, calves).

Layers of different colored bruises in the same general area.

“Sock” or “glove” burns on feet or hands or doughnut shaped burns on buttocks (from forcing the child into hot water).

Small round burns from cigarettes.

Burns in the shape of an object (iron, fireplace tool, or heater).

Rope burns on ankles, wrists, or torso.

Adult sized bite marks.

Suspicious fractures (doctors and nurses are trained to recognize these).

Sexual:

Withdrawal or anti-social attitude.

Refusal to undress for physical education or sports.

Exaggerated interest in sex or “acting out” sex with other children.

Unusually seductive behavior.

Fear of intimate contact (hugging or sports)

Torn, stained, or bloodied clothing.

Things To Do Instead of Hurting a Child:

Take a deep breath. Take a few more. Remember, you are the adult.

Close your eyes and imagine you are hearing what your child is about to hear, or receiving the same punishment.

Press your lips together and count to 20.

Put the child in a “time-out” chair for a number of minutes. The rule is one minute for each year of age.

Put yourself in a “time-out” chair. Are you really angry at the child or is it something else.

Call a friend to talk about it. If you need to, dial 1-800-4-A-CHILD (National Child Abuse Hotline).

If someone can watch the children, go out for a walk.

Take a hot bath or splash cold water on your face.

Turn on some music. Sing along if you want.

Pick up a pencil and write down a list of helpful words, not words that will hurt. Save the list. Use these words.

via Facts About Child Abuse.

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Paris, France (CNN) — Western Europe was dealing with the aftermath of violent weather Monday after a winter storm dubbed “Xynthia” battered at least six countries, leaving at least 58 people dead, authorities said.

Hardest hit was France, where at least 47 people were killed, according to the Interior Ministry.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited the departments of Charente-Maritime and Vendee on the nation's west coast Monday, where the extra-tropical cyclone hit.

“It's a national catastrophe,” French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Sunday. “Many people drowned, surprised by the rapid rise of the water.”

The combination of hurricane-force winds and high tide inundated parts of the coastal region.

Video: Xynthia batters Europe Video: 'Xynthia' batters France Video: Storms take toll on Europe

“It was rushing in, it broke down the walls around the garden and the gate,” a resident of Aiguillon-Sur-Mer, in the department of Vendee, told CNN affiliate BFM-TV.

Hundreds of people had to be rescued from their rooftops overnight.

Were you affected? Send your pics, videos to iReport.

“The water was up to the gutters,” said one woman, who spent the night on the roof with her children.

By Monday rescuers in boats and helicopters continued to search to find the missing in homes overrun by flooding, Agence France-Press said.

Residents of the village of Aytre, in Charente-Maritime, saw a wave of water measuring one-meter high come into the center of town.

“It was unreal,” Aytre Mayor Suzanne Tallard told BFM-TV.

At least 500,00 households were without power Monday morning, said Electricite de France. The utility said all power should be restored by Wednesday.

President Sarkozy said he was making €3 million ($4 million) of emergency funds available for the victims and promised that electricity would be restored by Tuesday, AFP reported. The agency added that the European Union was ready to offer support for the countries affected.

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told the affiliate that 350 soldiers and 3,250 firefighters have been mobilized to assist in the aftermath.

The high winds — at times spiking to 200 km/h (124 mph) — reached inland as far as Paris. Gusts of up to 175 km/h (108 mph) were measured at the top of the Eiffel Tower on Saturday, said Eboni Deon, CNN meteorologist .

As many as 100 flights were canceled at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle International Airport on Sunday because of the blustery conditions, the affiliate reported. All major French airports were back to normal schedules Monday.

A the storm's peak, Hurricane-strength winds stretched from Portugal northeast to the Netherlands.

The storm killed five people in Germany, officials said. Four of them died after being hit by falling trees. A fifth, a 2-year-old boy near the town of Biblis, drowned when he was blown into a river.

Train service was slowly returning to normal in Germany on Monday after massive disruptions and a partial shutdown of services in the states of North Rhine-Westfalia, Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Hesse a day earlier, railway Deutsche Bahn reported.

Crews spent the overnight hours clearing tracks of debris.

In Spain, at least three people were killed by the storm, Spanish Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said Sunday. Two children died in a car accident and one more person was killed in northwestern Spain, the minister said in a news conference on CNN sister station CNN+.

A 10-year-old child was killed by a falling tree in the high winds in Portugal, said Patricia Gaspar, national operations assistant with the Portuguese National Authority for Civil Protection.

There are also some power outages in the country, Gaspar said. Some residents have reported roofs blown off and smaller houses collapsing, she added.

A man was killed by a falling tree in Belgium, Peter Mertens, a spokesman for Belgium's Interior Ministry, said.

Eastern Belgium saw the worst of the storm, Mertens said.

“They've had problems with fallen trees, roofs blown off and electricity cables not working. But it seems the worst part has passed now,” he added.

The storm also reached England, where one woman was reported dead when the vehicle she was driving became submerged and washed down a swollen creek in the northeastern part of the country.

The body of the 53-year-old woman was recovered downstream, North Yorkshire Police said in a phone message to the media.

Concepcion, Chile (CNN) — As Sunday night fell on Chile, heavily populated parts of the country were without water and electricity, and reports of looting raised fears about security in some areas.

The nation’s hardest-hit major city declared an overnight curfew.

Calling Saturday’s early morning 8.8-magnitude quake an “unthinkable disaster,” Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said a “state of catastrophe” in the worst-hit regions would continue, allowing for the restoration of order and speedy distribution of aid. The death count doubled on Sunday from a day earlier, to 708 deaths.

Death toll rises to 147 in Chile

…

…

(CNN) — An magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck central Chile early Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The quake’s epicenter was located near the city of Concepcion, 212 miles (341 kilometers) from the capital of Santiago. It struck at 3:34 a.m. (1:34 a.m. ET).

Concepcion is Chile’s second largest city with a population of 200,000.



The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for Chile and Peru. The center recorded a tsunami wave as high as 9 feet.

“An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours,” the National Weather Service said in a statement.

The extent of damage or casualties was not immediately known.

Alessandro Perez, who is staying at the Santiago Marriott Hotel, reported shattered windows, but there was no structural damage. No one at the hotel was injured, he said.

Anita Herrera, who works at the Hotel Kennedy in Santiago, said electricity was knocked out at that hotel and guests were nervous.

“Our hotel is built for this,” she said. “In Chile, this happens many times.”

Chile holds the record for the largest earthquake in the world, according to the USGS. A magnitude 9.5 quake struck the South American country in May 1960 and killed 1,655 people.

Inventor unveils $7,000 talking sex robot – CNN.com.

Las Vegas, Nevada (CNN) — To some men, she might seem like the perfect woman: She’s a willowy 5 feet 7 and 120 pounds. She’ll chat with you endlessly about your interests. And she’ll have sex whenever you please — as long as her battery doesn’t run out.

Meet Roxxxy, who may be the world’s most sophisticated talking female sex robot. For $7,000, she’s all yours.

“She doesn’t vacuum or cook, but she does almost everything else,” said her inventor, Douglas Hines, who unveiled Roxxxy last month at the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lifelike dolls, artificial sex organs and sex-chat phone lines have been keeping the lonely company for decades. But Roxxxy takes virtual companionship to a new level.

Powered by a computer under her soft silicone “skin,” she employs voice-recognition and speech-synthesis software to answer questions and carry on conversations. She even comes loaded with five distinct “personalities,” from Frigid Farrah to Wild Wendy, that can be programmed to suit customers’ preferences.

“There’s a tremendous need for this kind of product,” said Hines, a computer scientist and former Bell Labs engineer.

Roxxxy won’t be available for delivery for several months, but Hines is taking pre-orders through his Web site, TrueCompanion.com, where thousands of men have signed up.

“They’re like, ‘I can’t wait to meet her,’ ” Hines said. “It’s almost like the anticipation of a first date.”

Women have inquired about ordering a sex robot, too. Hines says a female sex therapist even contacted him about buying one for her patients.

Roxxxy has been like catnip to talk-show hosts since her debut at AEE, the largest porn-industry convention in the country. In a recent monologue, Jay Leno expressed amazement that a sex robot could carry on lifelike conversations and express realistic emotions.

“Luckily, guys,” he joked, “there’s a button that turns that off.”

Curious conventioneers packed Hines’ AEE booth last month in Las Vegas, asking questions and stroking Roxxxy’s skin as she sat on a couch in a black negligee.

“Roxxxy generated a lot of buzz at AEE,” said Grace Lee, spokeswoman for the porn-industry convention. “The prevailing sentiment of everyone I talked to about Roxxxy is ‘version 1.0,’ but people were fascinated by the concept, and it caused them to rethink the possibilities of ’sex toys.’ ”

Hines, a self-professed happily married man from Lincoln Park, New Jersey, says he spent more than three years developing the robot after trying to find a marketable application for his artificial-intelligence technology.

Roxxxy’s body is made from hypoallergenic silicone — the kind of stuff in prosthetic limbs — molded over a rigid skeleton. She cannot move on her own but can be contorted into almost any natural position. To create her shape, a female model spent a week posing for a series of molds.

The robot runs on a self-contained battery that lasts about three hours on one charge, Hines says. Customers can recharge Roxxxy with an electrical cord that plugs into her back.

A motor in her chest pumps heated air through a tube that winds through the robot’s body, which Hines says keeps her warm to the touch. Roxxxy also has sensors in her hands and genital areas — yes, she is anatomically correct — that will trigger vocal responses from her when touched. She even shudders to simulate orgasm.

When someone speaks to Roxxxy, her computer converts the words to text and then uses pattern-recognition software to match them against a database containing hundreds of appropriate responses. The robot then answers aloud — her prerecorded “voice” is supplied by an unnamed radio host — through a loudspeaker hidden under her wig.

“Everything you say to her is processed. It’s very near real time, almost without delay,” Hines said of the dynamics of human-Roxxxy conversation. “To make it as realistic as possible, she has different dialogue at different times. She talks in her sleep. She even snores.” (The snoring feature can be turned off, he says.)

Roxxxy understands and speaks only English for now, but Hines’ True Companion company is developing Japanese and Spanish versions. For an extra fee, he’ll also record customizable dialogue and phrases for each client, which means Roxxxy could talk to you about NASCAR, say, or the intricacies of politics in the Middle East.

Hines believes that Roxxxy is a step above other love dolls — the similar but mute RealDoll costs about $5,500 — because her conversational abilities provide something close to emotional companionship. His customer base? Shy, awkward or older men who “have trouble meeting girls,” he says.

In an industry known for pushing the technological envelope, observers are curious about how Roxxxy will fare in the marketplace.

“Is this a viable product? Yes,” said Sherri Shaulis, an editor at Adult Video News, a trade magazine for the pornographic industry. “There’s a market for it. Granted, it’s a very small market.”

Maybe not. TrueCompanion claims that more than 4,000 men have placed pre-orders for Roxxxy robots, and another 20,000 or so have requested information about the product. TrueCompanion also is developing a male sex robot, named Rocky.

“There’s really nothing like this on the market,” said Hines, who speaks of his unique creation with what seems like genuine affection. “Whenever she’s out in public, everyone wants to talk to her and pose for pictures. It’s so cute.”

37238, TITANYEN, HAITI – Thursday January 28, 2010. This mass grave just short of the settlement of Titanyen, north of Port-au-Prince, is one of many sites that the Haitian government claims up to 150,000 bodies from the January 12th earthquake have already been buried. Diggers sit on top of huge areas of freshly-filled land with trenches prepared to receive more bodies and floodlights to enable work to continue throughout the night. Titanyen already had the dubious reputation from locals as the place of angry souls due to its use as a burial site for political rivals of Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. At one location, bodies have simply been dumped from the backs of trucks after collecting them. Most of these unidentified bodies are lacking even a basic burial, their distorted remains left to decompose in the hot Caribbean sunshine. Photograph: James Breeden PacificCoastNews.com

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) — A sweet sadness blankets Hector Mendez’s face, appropriate, perhaps, for a middle-age man who has seen suffering and miracles at once.

Many other rescuers have left the Haitian capital, no hope left in their hearts 15 long days after the massive earthquake that ravaged this country and entombed so many in the rubble.

But not Mendez.

Every day for more than a week, he has stepped down into the dark crevices of a destroyed building to look for two people: Daniel Varese and his 4-year-old son Mateo.

Mateo’s mother, Marylinda Gonzalez Davi, a United Nations employee from Guatemala who has been living in Haiti for four years, was at work when the earth shook violently on January 12. Rescuers pulled her 1-year-old daughter Fabiana alive from the rubble, but there was no sign of her husband and son. She refused to believe they were dead.

Word of her plight reached Mendez, who had arrived in Port-au-Prince with a team of 25 Mexican rescue workers.

“We told her we won’t leave. We will stay by her side,” Mendez said. He has a grandchild the same age as Mateo.

His orange jumpsuit dulled by dust, Mendez and his crew made camp adjacent to the rubble of the landmark Hotel Montana. They slept out in the open, with Gonzalez and her friend. They took short naps to re-energize. Then they went back in to search.

Each day, they pulled things from the place that Gonzalez called home: a stuffed animal, her husband’s computer, a piece of carpet. It helped Mendez to know what room of the apartment they had entered.

He kept moving, deeper and deeper. In search of smell. In search of the slightest sound. Of an infant’s whimper, a man’s weak cry for help.

Mendez became convinced father and son might be alive. He knows well the science of rescue after doing it for a quarter century.

“There is no smell,” he said. And that could mean they were alive.

Even two weeks after the earth shook, people were being rescued. Each gave Gonzalez hope. And that propelled Mendez.

He believes in the power of love. The strong bonds between a man and his child, trapped together. That link, he thought, could be enough to sustain them.

A veteran of many disasters

After a killer earthquake struck his hometown of Mexico City in 1985, Mendez, 46, felt a need to give back the humanitarian gestures extended to his own people. He joined a team called the Topos, or moles, named so because the rescuers wriggled through the deepest darkest corners in search of life.

He volunteered to rush to disasters: to Indonesian quakes, five times; to Latin American countries; to Iran, Turkey, India and Egypt; to New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina and to New York after the 2001 terror attacks.

Haiti, he said, is one of the worst situations he has seen. “People are very, very poor here.” Much of the infrastructure and construction was so shoddy. This was the first time government officials paid for his flight. Usually, he finds his own way.

And that has left him penniless and jobless.

“Who will hire this old man now?” he asked. “People tell me I am mad.”

He does the work because he loves to help people. “It’s worth it to find one person alive.”

Behind him, the incessant sound of a jackhammer deafened the ear. Above him, the roar of jets taking off from the airport. But it was below where Mendez belonged.

Time was ticking.

Sometimes, in the darkness, when he was crawling like a mole, the earth trembled. “Replica! Replica!” some of his men shouted. There was always the fear that whatever was left standing would tumble in the many aftershocks this city has felt.

“We laugh,” he said. “We don’t scream like ladies. There is nothing you can do inside. You only die once. It would be an honor to die in the rubble.”

From other people, the statement might seem trite. But Mendez’s eyes make you believe. He is called Chino because people say he looks Chinese. He says he has the look of a fierce Mexican Indian.

After so many days, Mendez was running on two hours sleep — and hope. But late Wednesday his search finally ended. His men found two bodies buried deep in the apartment.

Mateo was in his father’s arms.

In Haiti, Mendez had hoped for a miracle. Instead, he saw more suffering. This, too, will define the curves of his face.

Traffickers targeting Haiti’s children, human organs, PM says – CNN.com.

(CNN) — Trafficking of children and human organs is occurring in the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated parts of Haiti, killed more than 150,000 people, and left many children orphans, Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive said Wednesday.

“There is organ trafficking for children and other persons also, because they need all types of organs,” Bellerive said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.

He did not give specifics, but asked by Amanpour if there is trafficking of children, Bellerive said, “The reports I received say yes.”

Haiti is trying to locate displaced children and register them so they can either be reunited with other family members or put up for adoption, Bellerive said.

But, he said, illegal child trafficking is “one of the biggest problems that we have.”

Many groups appear to be legitimate, “but a lot of organizations — they come and they say there were children on the streets. They’re going to bring them to the [United] States,” he said.

Bellerive said he’s trying to work with embassies in Port-au-Prince to protect Haiti’s children from traffickers.

“Any child that is leaving the country has to be validated by the embassy under a list that they give me, with all the reports,” he said.

Speaking at his temporary headquarters in a police station near the Port-au-Prince Airport, Bellerive said the first thing Haitian officials seek to confirm is whether the children have adoption papers before they leave the country.

In Washington, the State Department said Wednesday it is moving cautiously on the issue of adoptions from Haiti.

“We want to be sure that when a child has been identified, that due diligence has been done to make sure that this is truly an orphan child and not a child that actually has family,” said State Department Spokesman P.J. Crowley. “Sometimes if you push too hard, too fast there can be unintended consequences. So we are being very, very careful.”

“We respect the sovereignty of Haiti and their right to control the departure of Haitian children. So we think the system that has been established is working effectively. I know there is a perception out there of ‘cut through the red tape.’ But there are very good reasons we want to make sure this process works well,” Crowley said.

On the broader issue of Haitian children, Bellerive told Amanpour the government will reopen schools Monday in most of the country.

He said there were particular problems in Port-au-Prince.

“We cannot open one school and not the other. But some of the schools want to operate right now. They say if there are tents — if there are facilities and we can help them — they are willing to open very rapidly.”

Bellerive also highlighted the critical importance of getting enough tents and shelters to Haiti before the rainy season begins in May. He said he didn’t know where all the tents promised by aid agencies and governments are.

“We have reports that they’ve already sent 20,000 tents maybe, and 20,000 more are on the way. But yesterday, when we didn’t see the tents and we didn’t see any action to organize the shelters, the president himself asked to see the storage place and we only counted 3,500 tents.”

Bellerive said President Rene Preval asked for 200,000 tents to house between 400,000 and 500,000 people. “We are very preoccupied about the consequences of all those people on the street, if it starts to rain.”

The prime minister also rejected criticism from within Haiti and overseas that his government needs to be more visible to the Haitian people.

“We are in charge. Frankly I don’t understand what that position is that we are not visible,” he said. “I almost feel that I spend more time talking to radio, television, than I am working.”

“I know it’s part of my job and I have to communicate. But I really feel that I have spent too much time doing that.”

Bellerive also said he does not believe it’s necessary to relocate the capital to another part of Haiti.

“I have to wait for technical and scientific evaluation, but from what I’ve heard until now, Port-au-Prince will stay there.”

“Tokyo is still there, Los Angeles is still there. We just have to prepare a better constructed Port-au-Prince, a safer Port-au-Prince,” he said.

He also acknowledged the need for more transparency and new procedures to prevent corruption in Haiti. But he said 70 to 80 percent of the aid coming to the country right now does not go through the Haitian government.

Bellerive said about 90 percent of American aid, for example, goes through non-governmental organizations. “They are accountable to the American government, but not to the Haitian government,” he said.

The prime minister told Amanpour that he does not believe people overseas are helping Haiti out of a moral obligation.

“I believe it’s a more pragmatic responsibility,” he said. “I believe Haiti could be an interesting market in the midterm. We are 10 million [people] here and it’s a market.”

Has Twitter peaked? – CNN.com.

(CNN) — It was the upstart rock star of the Internet in early 2009, roaring out of relative obscurity to become one of the most exposed — some would say overexposed — services on the Web.

But since the middle of last year, the number of Twitter users has flatlined.

Compete, a Web analytics firm, says the microblogging site’s number of visitors hasn’t changed much since June and that its roughly 22 million visitors in December was about 770,000 fewer than its highest number, which was in August.

Multiple other analysts paint the same picture, raising the question: Has Twitter peaked?

“Maybe Twitter was a victim of its own success,” said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at comScore, another company that tracks traffic on Internet sites. “It grew so quickly that it isn’t meeting its own expectations.”

But the company and some analysts say that this leveling of popularity shouldn’t be viewed as a failure, because the people who use Twitter are using it more than ever.

ComScore’s usage numbers for Twitter are similar to Compete’s. They show the site peak with about 21.2 million visitors in July 2009 and dip to 19.9 million in December. By contrast, during the same period Facebook grew from about 250 million users to more than 350 million.

Lipsman suggests Twitter’s recent stagnant numbers look anemic largely because its growth in early 2009 was so astronomical.

After several months of double-digit growth, traffic to Twitter.com skyrocketed in March, increasing by 131 percent in just one month.

That was the sharpest spike in a growth boom during which, according to comScore, the site went from about 2.6 million visitors at the beginning of January 2009 to 17 million by the end of April.

“I was really floored when I was watching those numbers come out,” Lipsman said. “I’ve never seen anything close to that in the natural growth curve of a site.”

Interest was piqued after celebrities, athletes and other high-profile users signed on early last year, sharing their thoughts with the world in 140-character snippets.

Twitter user numbers go flat

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But with that came what political pundits call “soft support,” people who may have checked out the site a few times and decided it wasn’t for them.

Mark Logan, vice president of Kansas City, Missouri-based Barkley Marketing, said his Twitter use tailed off as the site got bigger.

“I don’t know whether Twitter itself has peaked, but my own usage of Twitter is definitely in a slump,” said Logan.

He said that, compared to the site’s early days, when he used it primarily as a professional tool, there’s too much chatter he’s not interested in now.

“The signal-to-noise ratio seems too low,” said Logan. “In the early days of Twitter, the conversation was centered around digital marketing topics and technology. It’s much broader now.”

Twitter did not respond to multiple messages from CNN asking for comment for this story.

But in a “tweet” from his account earlier this month, after reports of Twitter’s flatlining began appearing on technology blogs, CEO Evan Williams was bullish.

“Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.),” he wrote on the evening of January 12, the day of the earthquake in Haiti.

Analysts are finding statistics that may back up that claim, at least in part. They say current Twitter users are more engaged with the site than ever.

According to Web analysts HubSpot, average users now have more followers (300, compared to about 70 in July) follow more feeds (170, compared to 45 in July) and have sent more tweets (420 during the life of their account, compared to 120 in July).

The site also is becoming more international. Less than 51 percent of Twitter users were from the United States in December, compared to more than 61 percent in June.

Others have suggested that Twitter’s user base only appears to have flattened because more people are using mobile devices and third-party programs like TweetDeck to post to the site. But Lipsman believes most of those people still visit the site at least once a month, which should register in site-traffic analysis.

Lipsman said he expects Twitter’s growth to kick back up, if at a much slower rate than before. He said he’d only be alarmed if the site’s user numbers stayed flat for several more months.

“It’s easy to only look at what it’s done lately,” he said. “[But] you can almost imagine, what if Twitter had just grown at a more steady rate over the past months? You’d see that as a very strong growth trajectory.

“There’s been a strengthening of the user base which can help it reach that critical mass where it will continue to trend upward over time.”