More Twitter users tweeting via mobile apps

Among the more than 145 million users of Twitter, a growing number are accessing the microblogging service through mobile apps.

The number of mobile users on Twitter has grown 62 percent since mid-April, according to a Thursday blog post from CEO Evan Williams.

Among newbies to the site, 16 percent of them tap into their first tweet via the mobile Web. That's up from 5 percent before the company launched its rebranded Twitter app for the iPhone a few months ago.

In his blog, Williams also revealed why Twitter bought the app formerly known as Tweetie and reintroduced it as Twitter for the iPhone in May. Tests run by the company discovered users were having trouble picking a mobile Twitter app among the dozens out there because no app was named "Twitter."

As it was prepping to launch Twitter for the iPhone, the company felt it also needed a branded mobile client for the other smartphone platforms. That prompted it to release its own Twitter for Android app, while Research in Motion debuted Twitter for BlackBerry, both around the same time.

Twitter's stats show that 8 percent of all users now reading and posting tweets through the iPhone app and 7 percent use Twitter for BlackBerry. But third-parties apps continued to be popular, with 3 percent of Twitter accounts using TweetDeck. Altogether, 14 percent access Twitter through its mobile site.

And though 78 percent of Twitter folks still access the service directly via the traditional Web site, other apps are playing a larger role.

The number of registered OAuth applications has grown to almost 300,000, says Williams, triple the number since Twitter's Chirp developers conference in April. An open means of authentication, OAuth lets people who store information on one site authorize another site to access it. By working with OAuth, developers can create alternative ways for people to view and post tweets without using a dedicated Twitter client or Web page.