Twitter only has only a quarter as many regular U.S. users as Facebook. But it holds its own with Facebook in terms of how many Americans find news via tweets, according to a new Pew Research Center report. And tends to reach a younger, more mobile, and better educated demographic on Twitter, compared to Facebook.

This probably won't make or break Twitter's much-anticipated initial public offering this week, but it could prove important for Twitter's news engagement potential.

In Twitter News Consumers (a report done in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation), Pew found that 8% of U.S. adults get at least some news via Twitter. In October, Pew also found that 30% of Americans encounter news on Facebook.

Data released in the run-up to Twitter's IPO shows that in Q2 this year, Twitter had about 49 million monthly active users in the U.S. on average; Facebook had about 198 million for the same period. But overall, U.S. users t are roughly equally likely to encounter news on either of these social media giants.

What's "news?" In these surveys, Pew defined news as "information about events and issues that involve more than just your friends or family" -- a pretty broad definition that could include event announcements, information from local governments and community groups, and more.

According to Pew, U.S. adult Twitter news consumers are far more likely to do so via a mobile device (85%) than Facebook news consumers (64%). Also, nearly half of Twitter news consumers are age 18-29, compared to about a third of Facebook news consumers -- which gives Twitter a significant edge for engaging young adults, and probably youth. http://www.journalism.org/files/2013/11/Profile-of-the-Twitter-News-Cons...

Twitter news consumers are equally split by by gender; on Facebook, 58% of news consumers are female. Facebook has an advantage in spreading news to U.S. adult users who are white, over age 50, less wealthy or less well educated.

Twitter is probably better than Facebook for keeping people engaged with breaking news. Pew noted that a core function of Twitter is passing along pieces of information as a story develops.

Pew did not examine the different types of news (such as local vs. national) that Twitter users are most likely to encounter. Nor did they examine news sharing patterns on Twitter.