The season finale! The end of my experiment with metrics

Recap: I'm at the end of a month-long experiment tracking the Top 500+ Twitter users (based on Followers). I decided to look at the growth rate of these accounts to see what, if anything, it indicated about Twitter culture.

Here are last week's fastest growing accounts with the SU indicating Twitterers who have been placed on Twitter's Suggested User list.

Fastest growing Twitter accounts (5/18/09-5/24/09):

1. The Best @s (@BestAt) 406% SU
2. Rob Riggle (@RobRiggle) 208% SU
3. Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward) 150% SU
4. Ethan Suplee (@EthanSuplee) 137% SU
5. Sarah Brown (@SarahBrown10) 98% SU
6. John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) 95% SU
7. Dr. Sanjay Gupta (@SanjayGuptaCNN) 92% SU
8. Bill Simmons (@SportsGuy33) 86% SU
9. Moby (@TheLittleIdiot) 82% SU
10. Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) 74% SU
11. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (@KAJ33) 74% SU
12. Roger Erik Tinch (@CineVegas) 74% SU
13. David Archuleta (@DavidArchie) 69%
14. Next to Normal (@N2NBroadway) 65% SU
15. Jack Gray (@JackGrayCNN) 64% SU
16. Justin Timberlae (@JTimberlake) 63%
17. Billy Ray Cyrus (@BillyRayCyrus) 54%
18. White House (@WhiteHouse) 54% SU
19. Rania Ab Abdullah (@QueenRania) 49% SU
20. Michael Ausiello (@EWAusielloFiles) 49% SU

SU=Twitter's Sugested User

This week, the growth rates were down from the three previous weeks and ordinary (non-SU) Twitterers returned to being 15% of the list, up from 5% last week. I think this might be due to Twitter slowing down the new additions to the Suggested Users list which has grown from 20 users in February to 226 in May.

I've also noticed that although Suggested Users dominate the fastest growing Twitter accounts, users are being selective, they are not choosing "all" and adding the whole entire roster. Suggested Users seem to have their fastest growth rate in new Followers in the second & third week after being added to the list.

Here are the fastest, naturally growing accounts:

Fastest organically growing Twitter accounts (5/18/09-5/24/09):

1. David Archuleta (@DavidArchie) 69%
2. Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) 63%
3. Billy Ray Cyrus (@BillyRayCyrus) 54%
4. Jordin Sparks (@TheRealJordin) 33%
5. 106 & Park (@106AndPark) 33%
6. Emily Osment (@EmilyOsment) 32%
7. Paris Hilton (@BabyGirlParis) 31%
8. Stephen Colbert (@StephenTColbert) 23% (Faux account)
9. Kristen Stewart (@KristenStewart9) 23%
10. Rev. Run (@RevRunWisdom) 22%
11. Eminem (@Eminem) 22%
12. Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) 22%
13. Katie Price/Jordan (@MissKatiePrice) 22%
14. Pink (@Pink) 21%
15. Stephanie Pratt (@StephaniePratt) 19%
16. Busta Rhymes (@BusaBusss) 19%
17. Katt Williams (@KattPackAllDay) 18%
18. Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) 17%
19. Kid Cudi (@KidCudi) 17%
20. Brandi Cyrus (@TheBrandiCyrus) 17%

As in previous weeks, the fastest, organically growing Twitter accounts are dominated by pop culture figures, specifically young actors & singers (pop & hip-hop/rap) with much a larger representation of women and African-Americans than on the Suggested User "hot" list. It's an interesting contrast between those people Twitter wants to promote and pop culture figures that new users are seeking out on their own.

And, as noted last week, growth in Follower numbers for the Top 500+ Twitter accounts continues to slow down. Like last week, a slightly higher 75% of the top accounts had a weekly growth rate of 10% or lower with 4.6% accounts having 0 or negative growth.

This has been an interesting, if time-consuming, project and I'll have a blog post about general conclusions I can make after this four week project. I haven't decided whether to continue to collect the data but, as far as this blog is concerned, I'll move on to other topics or, at least, other aspects of Twitter...and the rest of life!

If Twitter's Suggested User list is PBS, then the Most Popular list is MySpace

Recap: I'm in the middle of a month-long experiment tracking the Top 500+ Twitter users (based on Followers). I decided to look at the growth rate of these accounts to see what, if anything, it indicated about Twitter culture.

Fastest growing Twitter accounts (5/11/09-5/17/09)

1. Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) 995% SU
2. Jack Gray (@JackGrayCNN) 432% SU
3. Rania Al Abdulah (@QueenRania) 392% SU
4. Moby (@TheLittleIdiot) 372% SU
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (@KAJ33) 344% SU
6. Roger Erik Tinch (@CineVegas) 273% SU
7. Bill Simmons (@SportsGuy33) 235% SU
8. Next to Normal (@N2NBroadway) 192% SU
9. Michael Ausiello (@EWAusielloFiles)141% SU
10. John Calipari (@UKCoachCalipari) 121% SU
11. White House (@WhiteHouse) 104% SU
12. Life.Com (@Life) 76% SU
13. Counting Crows (@CountingCrows) 75% SU
14. Wyclef Jean (@Wyclef) 71% SU
15. Roc4Life (@Roc4Life) 71% SU
16. Health Magazine (@GoodHealth) 70% SU
17. Joel Stein (@TheJoelStein) 67% SU
18. ExecTweets (@ExecTweets) 61% SU
19. Gov. Schwarzengger (@Schwarzenegger) 61% SU
20. Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) 56%

SU=Twitter's Sugested User

Once again we see the overwhelming dominance of the Twitter's list of 223 Suggested Users in influencing the fastest growing accounts on Twitter. And it seems to be growing. On the 4/26 and 5/3 lists, 85% of the Top 20 were SUs while on the 5/10 and 5/17 lists, it's grown to be 95% of the list. 

If you're interested in reading more about the influence being on the Suggested User list has upon popularity on Twitter, Ben Lorica did a more focused analysis and wrote it up on the O'Reilly Radar blog: Being a Suggested User Leads to Thousands of Twitter Followers.

Now on to the list of the fastest growing Twitter accounts that don't benefit from this extra publicity:

Fastest organically growing Twitter accounts (5/11/09-5/17/09):

1. Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) 56%
2. Pink (@Pink) 40%
3. Lauren Conrad (@LaurenConrad) 39%
4. Katie Price Jordan (@MissKatiePrice) 38%
5. Paris Hilton (@BabyGirlParis) 34%
6. Emily Osment (@EmilyOsment) 30%
7. Mark Cuban (@MCuban) 26%
8. Stephanie Pratt (@StephaniePratt) 25%
9. Rev. Run (@RevRunWisdom) 23%
10. Jordin Sparks (@TheRealJordin) 22%
11. Brody Jenner (@BrodyJenner) 22%
12. Drizzy Drake (@Drakkardnoir) 21%
13. Trey Songz (@SongzYuuup) 21%
14. Matthew Perry (@LangfordPerry) 20%
15. Russell Simmons (@UncleRush) 20%
16. Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) 20%
17. Adam Sandler (@AdamSandler) 19% (faux account)
18. Khloe Kardashian (@KhloeKardashian) 18%
19. Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) 18%
20. Keri Hilson (@MissKeriBaby) 17%

There are a lot of the same user accounts as in last week's alternate Top 20 list, mostly pop culture TV/Movie/Music/Reality show celebrities. It is clear that this list is composed of more women, more African-Americans and younger personalities than the Suggested Users list which has more politicians, journalists, sports personalities and media outlets, all of which are absent from the popular list. If Twitter's Suggested User list is like PBS, then the popular list is like MySpace.

And, as noted last week in general in the Top 500+ accounts, growth in Follower numbers is slowing down considerably. Like last week, 74% of the top accounts had a weekly growth rate of 10% or lower with 3.4% of that being 0 or negative growth. The median rate of growth rose slightly from 7.01% (5/10) to 7.11% (5/17).

Note: I should mention that there were some fast-rising names on this week's Top 500+ list that I couldn't include in my calculations because Twitterholic & TwitterCounter had only started tracking these accounts last week so no comparison was possible. Several of these names would probably have had a place on the popular list and they include accounts of Adrienne Bailon (@Adrienne_Bailon), Lindsay Lohan (@LiDLo) (faux account), Katt Williams (@KattPackAllDay), DJ Drama (@DJDrama), Dwight Howard (@DwightHoward), and Busta Rhymes (@BusaBusss).

Later this week, I hope to write a blog entry on the increase of African-American artists into the ranks of top users of Twitter.

Hot Twitterers: A Different View

Yesterday I posted a blog entry about last week's fastest growing Twitter accounts pulled from the Top 500+ Twitter users (by Follower numbers). It was obvious how dominated the list was by accounts recommended via Twitter's Suggested User option, a tool which offers new users suggestions about people/groups they might follow. 

I thought I'd weed out all of those accounts which had gotten the equivalent of a unpaid boost and see which accounts were growing organically at the fastest pace. This list paints quite a different picture of the current swing of popularity on this social network:

Fastest organically growing Twitter accounts (4/26/09-5/3/09):

1. Matthew Perry (@LangfordPerry) 1002%
2. Russell Simmons (@UncleRush) 135%
3. Lauren Conrad (was @LCLaurenConrad, now @LaurenConrad) 133%
4. Paris Hilton (@BabyGirlParis) 94%
5. Timbaland (@Timbaland) 63%
6. Brody Jenner (@BrodyJenner) 52%
7. Steve Buscemi (@Steve_Buscemi) 52%
8. Terrence J (@TerrenceJ106) 49%
9. Trey Songz (@SongzYuuup) 48%
10. Lauren London (@MsLaurenLondon) 44%
11. Eminem (@Eminem) 44%
12. Seth Rogen (@Seth_Rogen) 39%
13. Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) 39%
14. Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) 38%
15. Chis Brown (@FreeChrisBrown) 35% (Probably faux account)
16. Keri Hilson (@MissKeriBaby) 31%
17. Lil Wayne (@WeezyOfficial) 31%
18. Rafinha Bastos (@RafinhaBastos) 31%
19. Rachel Bilson (@Rachel_Bilson) 30%
20. Taylor Swift (@TaySwift) 30% (Another faux account)

Once you take out the Twitter staff's favorites, the hot accounts have a completely different focus. Rather being composed of journalists, charities, established artists & tech companies, you have a mix of comedians, musicians, rappers, off-beat artists, and reality show celebrities. Plus a few people I have absolutely no idea what they do because their bios provide very little information on them.

It's hard not to notice how much more diverse this list is with much more African-American representation. Although a recent report by Comscore highlights the fact that the demographics of Twitter are growing in the 45-54 year old range, what & who is hot at Twitter, when not influenced by Twitter Suggested Users, definitely skews more towards urban pop (TV & music) culture rather than mainstream Hollywood or Bay Area tech scenes, the blogosphere or the marketplace.

An odd thing to note is how @Timbaland's account is growing despite the fact he has not posted a Tweet since 9/9/07 and how @Rachel_Bilson has yet to post a single Tweet! Yet, she has over 45K people who want to follow her once she starts Tweeting. 

There is a significant segment of Twitter users who are actively seeking out celebrities they want to hear from, regardless of whether they are currently active or whether their account might be actually written by an imposter (there are several Taylor Swift accounts & I doubt Chris Brown is writing @FreeChrisBrown!).

Again, these are accounts pulled from the largest Twitter accounts as indicated by Twitter, Twitter Counter, Twitterholic & WeFollow. In a small poll we ran, the bulk of Twitter users focus on their immediate network of friends rather than these larger, celebrity users. 

Still, tracking this data allows us to see some changing trends on Twitter as the Top Users change from tech/VC guys to bloggers to social media consultants to Internet marketers and now to musicians & reality show celebrities.

Olympic Fevah!

The Olympics is now rivaling Twitter for the biggest time-killer in my day. It's amazing how pulled in you can get watching sports you have no real interest in like field hockey, weightlifting, equestrian sports, handball, and soccer. I think the announcers, while inane at times, do an excellent job giving the viewers the backstory on athletes so you feel pulled into the story of their "journey to the gold".

These stories are probably half truth, half embellishment but even knowing that doesn't make them any less compelling to me. Fables, legends, and myths have power even though we know they never actually happened. A good story beats an articulate analysis every day of the week in terms of holding people's interest.

I have never cared how many medals the U.S. wins, in fact, I always root for the lower profile nations to get their due since a smaller country winning an award always means so much more for their sense of identity and national pride than adding another award to the U.S. medal pile. They have fewer high quality training facilities & coaches and you can forget about corporate sponsorship. So, being the best in spite of the lack of support makes their accomplishment even greater.

I'm an avid Olympics watcher but a casual sports fan so I won't blog a lot about the athletic aspect of the games. But the social impact of international sports competition, corporate sponsorship, and the impact of live, online broadcasting of Olympic events are all fair game!

Embrace discomfort...sez who?

I was looking around the house for something to inspire me to write and I found a Word document I had created by cutting and pasting an article from the Internet...here is the section that grabbed me initially when I saw the article in a magazine:

Embrace discomfort—at least temporarily.
Change is hard, but perpetual dissatisfaction is no picnic either. "You won't make any real progress unless you're willing to be temporarily uncomfortable," says Robert Leahy, PhD, a clinical professor of psychology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and author of The Worry Cure. "Taking one step backward from your easy life is the first step forward." You may even learn that what you thought would be excruciating (putting your house up for sale, having a one-on-one with your boss or partner) isn't nearly as unpleasant as you thought. http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/make-this-your-year/b7f068f271903110VgnVCM10000013281eac____/weight.loss/strategies.for.success/diet.basics/0/0/1

This is so true of me--I try to avoid anxiety by delaying uncomfortable activities or decisions--but writing a simple blog entry became this early morning quest to find the authorship of this quote. I didn't identify the source on my Word document so I did a Google and Yahoo search for "embrace discomfort", looked through 250 options they listed; went on to at least a dozen quotation websites, searching for any quotes using the words "embrace" and "discomfort"; I even went to some Bible sites after thinking it might be some quote from Paul but no luck.

No one takes credit for putting these two words together but it was interesting to see who uses the expression:

1. Self-help websites
2. Yoga websites
3. Business/Motivational websites
4. Exercise/Sport websites
5. Health websites
6. Ecological websites
7. Christian websites
   

So, the expression has expanded to beyond what how I initially understood the term to now include all forms of change in ones physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual life, ones business practices or ones lifestyle. It now refers to any aspect of our life that we are seeking to change whether it is altering ones corporate culture or sales methods, changing how or where we shop, losing weight, getting in shape to run a marathon, learning to love our neighbor, pushing through the pain to achieve a yoga position, or starting to date again after a divorce.

It's fascinating to me that somewhere, at some point, some unknown minister, self-help guru, or motivational speaker put these two words together and created an entire philosophy that covers all aspects of ones personal and professional life. How does that happen? It's refreshing in this day and age that a phrase can be popularized like that without someone "branding" or trademarking it.

I never did find the source of this quote listed above until I went back to my original document and did a search for a more obscure term (the last name of one of the authors cited). It turns out that the original piece was from Prevention magazine at the beginning of the year and came from a series of articles about making changes in ones life (link included).

My search for inspiration ended up becoming a futile search for an author and it is somehow comforting to me that there are some newer expressions or sayings that we can still say were written by "Anonymous".