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.

Twitter growth slowdown?

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 the accounts to see what, if anything, it indicated about Twitter culture.

Last week, it became apparent that the Twitter list of Suggested Users (found under the "Find People" tab on Twitter) almost completely accounted for the rapid growth of the fastest growing Twitter accounts. Here is the most recent list:

Fastest growing Twitter accounts (5/4/09-5/10/09):

1. Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) 361%
   
2. Good Health (@GoodHealth) 355% SU
   
3. Life (@Life) 254% SU
4. Counting Crows (@CountingCrows) 210% SU
   
5. ExecTweets (@ExecTweets) 172% SU
   
6. Wyclef Jean (@Wyclef) 164% SU
   
7. White House (@WhiteHouse) 118% SU
   
8. Joel Stein (@TheJoelStein) 115% SU
   
9. iTunes Movie Trailers(@iTunesTrailers) 105% SU
   
10. Roc4Life (@Roc4Life) 92% SU
    
11. Kevin Nealon (@Kevin_Nealon) 84% SU
    
12. Jack Welch (@Jack_Welch) 83% SU
    
13. Nick Swisher (@NickSwisher) 79% SU
    
14. UNHCR Refugee News (@Refugees) 75% SU
    
15. Serena Williams (@SerenaJWilliams) 71% SU
    
16. John Green (@RealJohnGreen) 62% SU
    
17. Fantastic (@ShowDavida) 60% SU
    
18. Soraya Darabi (@Sorayad) 59% SU
    
19. Mano Menezes (@ManoMenezes) 55% SU
    
20. Etsy (@Etsy) 55% SU

SU=Twitter's Sugested User

Almost all of these accounts were added to the Twitter Suggested Users list in the past 2 weeks. Since the Suggested User list is such an overwhelming influence in determing which accounts grew the fastest, I eliminated the 208 names of Twitterers selected by Twitter staff and got this alternate list of the fastest growing accounts not affected by a SU recommendation:

Fastest organically growing Twitter accounts (5/4/09-5/10/09):

1. Justin Timberlake (@JTimberlake) 361%
   
2. Pink (@Pink) 50%
3. Ben Stiller (@Ben_Stiller) 48%
4. Joy Behar (@JoyVBehar) 42%
5. Paris Hilton (@BabyGirlParis) 39% 
6. Emily Osment (@EmilyOsment) 36%
7. Lauren Conrad (@LaurenConrad) 31%
8. Drizzy Drake (@DrakkarNoir) 28%
9. Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) 28%
10. Matthew Perry (@LangfordPerry) 27%
11. Trey Songz (@SongzYuuup) 26%
12. Lauren London (@MsLaurenLondon) 23%
13. Russell Simmons (@UncleRush) 22%
14. Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) 22%
15. Terrence J (@TerrenceJ106) 21%
16. Hugh Jackman (@RealHughJackman) 21%
17. Khloe Kardashian (@KhloeKardashian) 21 %
18. Nathan Fillion (@NathanFillion) 20%
19. Lil Wayne (@WeezyOfficial) 19% (account has recently been hacked)
20. Keri Hilson (@MissKeriBaby) 18%

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. But in general, in the Top 500+ accounts, growth in Follower numbers is slowing down considerably. 

As far as I've been able to determine, from its creation in March 2006 to September 2008 Twitter growth was marked by a slow but steady increase in both the number of Twitter accounts and the number of Followers in the majority of accounts that are not protected (that is, Followers admitted by approval only). 

During Summer 2008, Twitter started growing faster and this growth took off during the latter part of the Presidential Election (October 2008). This increase accelerated even faster between December 2008-midApril 2009 as Twitter received both media attention--news shows, newspaper/website articles, Twitter founders' appearances on Oprah, The View & The Colbert Report--as well as an influx of aggressive Internet Marketers and ECommerce business people eager to put Twitter to work for them through Auto-Following strategies.

But, if the largest accounts are a reflection of trends on Twitter in general, this exponential growth rate in account size is slowing done considerably. 

Last week, 74% of the Top 500+ accounts had a growth rate of 10% or lower compared to 56% (5/3/09), 50% (4/26/09) and 34% (4/19/09). 

Median rate of growth for the Top 500+ accounts fell from 13.35% (4/19/09) > 10.67% (4/26/09) > 9.29% (5/3/09) > 7.01% (5/10/09). 

This slowing down or "plateauing" is most evident in accounts that have existed for six months or longer.

I can see a few possible reasons to account for the slowdown in growth of account size:

1. The saturation of media coverage has led to a decrease in creation of new Twitter accounts
2. Twitterers are cutting down on the number of people they follow (downsizing)
3. People are choosing to go broader in their selection of people to follow (few celebrities & "top" names, more fellow users)
4. Twitters who aggressively try to build high Follower numbers are slowing down their efforts (due to influx of celebrities & new Following number limits imposed by Twitter)

These are just hypotheses based on a highly selective group of Twitters I've studied over a very short period of time. But it could signal that growth in Twitter is slowing down or has reached a plateau. 

No doubt it is likely Twitter will experience bursts of rapid growth in the future as it becomes more mainstream, more well-known people publicly talk about their Twitter use or Twitter increasingly becomes a source for breaking news. We'll see if this slowing down trend continues over the next two weeks of this project or whether it is just an anomaly.

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.

Twitter Metric Experiment Week #1

Okay, so I've been running through different kinds of comparisons using Twitter stats (see entries below) to see what can be learned about social networks based on the available data. Here is last week's data of the most popular Twitterers.

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

1. UNHCR Refugee News (@Refugees) 5,446% SU
2. Soraya Durabi (@SorayaD) 2,424% SU
3. CDC Emergency (@CDCEmergency) 1,270% SU
4. Matthew Perry (@LangfordPerry) 1,000% 
5. NFL (@NFL) 787% SU
6. Kevin Nealon (@Kevin_Nealon) 719% SU
7. Fantastico (@ShowDavida) 457% SU
8. John Green (@RealJohnGreen) 395% SU
9. Adam Wilson (@UWBCI) 337% SU
10. MC Thumbtack (@ABigVictory) 317% SU
11. iTunes MovieTrailers (@iTunesTrailers) 302% SU
12. Mano Menezes (@ManoMenezes) 299% SU
13. The Real Paula Abdul (@PaulaAbdul) 282% SU
14. Chris Anderson (@TEDChris) 211% SU  
15. Etsy (@Etsy) 145% SU
16. Russell Simmons (@UncleRush) 135%
17. Lauren Conrad (@LCLaurenConrad) 133%
18. Lakers (@Lakers) 120% SU
19. Paul Feig (@PaulFeig) 119% SU
20. Digg 2000 (@Digg_2000) 111% SU

SU=Twitter's Suggested User

Just looking over yesterday's practice run and this list what is immediately obvious is what an impact being selected by Twitter to be put on the Suggested User list can have on an account, especially an initially small account like @Refugees which grew from 697 Followers to 38,656 in just a week. It makes a huge impact for the first & second week after an account is listed and though it will still bring accounts new Followers afterwards, the change will be less dramatic. 

It was well accepted & acknowledged that the Suggested User list (begun in February 2009) is influential in building a following on Twitter but I had no idea what a dominating influence it was. Since the data is already gathered, tomorrow I will post an "alternative" list of the fastest growing accounts that grew without the benefit of Twitter sponsorship. This list might tell a different story of what garners attention & popularity at the current moment.

As I've said, I'm not a statistician and this has been extremely time-consuming. I'm committed to running this exercise for four weeks and then will assess what, if anything, I've learned. Your contributions and thoughts are most welcome!

Twitter: Oversharing or Just Enough Sharing?

I ran another TwtPoll Tuesday, here are the question & results:

Question: Twitter has been called part of a new "culture of oversharing."  Which answer best reflects your opinion?

• I don't really care about the details of most people's private lives. That's not why I'm on Twitter. 25% (24 votes)


• I'm curious about what is going on with my friends but not strangers. 9% (9 votes)


• The daily lives of celebrities are kind of fascinating to me. 0% (0 votes)


• I find the details of people's lives which they choose to share to be the most interesting part of Twitter. 31% (29 votes)


• Not only do I not mind other people sharing details of their lives, I like to "overshare," too. 18% (17 votes)


• I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "overshare." 3% (3 votes)


• Other (send your opinion to @nwjerseyliz) 14% (13 votes)

There are some very interesting observations you can make about these results:

1. The most obvious result to note is that there is a clear lack of consensus on the appropriateness of private information posted on a online public network. This might be frustrating for those 25% of people who answered that they use Twitter primarily for business or information but it's in keeping with the vision of Twitter's creators that Twitter be a tool for whatever people want to use it for (like email, I was told).


2. Except for the 25% who would rather not hear about the details of people's daily lives, most people were comfortable with the personal sharing nature of Twitter whether they preferred to read about the lives of their friends, people in general or not only other people but sharing of themselves as well.
   


3. There was NO ONE who responded that they really prefer to read the inside scoop on the daily lives of celebrities. This probably says more about the tastes of people who follow me & those who ReTweeted the blog link than about the general Twitterverse. I still think there is a strong element of celebrity voyeurism especially among new users to Twitter.


4. There was some confusion about the word "overshare", whether it meant sharing too much personal information (intimate information) or sharing too frequently (quantity). I meant it to mean the former.


5. There was a substantial number of "Other" answers and I received quite a few personal replies explaining people's point of view. The comments were so diverse, it is impossible to generalize about them except that they also reflect the fact that opinion on this issue vary quite a bit. The main issue in question is how much to share (level of sharing) & who to share it with (personal network). This can be easily adjusted by unfollowing people who share too little or too much.


6. Several people objected to the term "overshare". I chose this term because  I've heard it used by Social Media Analysts. Those who disliked it, accurately noticed that it is inherently negative as "over" implies "too much". Typically in polls or surveys you aim for either neutral language or equally strong language for all options (my choice).

There were 95 votes, a bit short of my goal of 100 votes but I'm happy because a lot of the votes came in long after I first posted the link on Twitter (9 am EST US). Thanks for everyone who either voted, ReTweeted the link and/or commented on the poll.

Celebrities on Twitter: Love 'em, hate 'em or just don't care?

Recently, there has been a lot of media buzz surrounding the rush of celebrities on to the social network Twitter. Ashton Kutcher's (@aplusk) race with CNN (@CNNBrk) to obtain a million followers, Twitter co-founder Evan Willaims (@ev) appearing with Kutcher to show Oprah Winfrey (@oprah) how to Tweet, Twitter's Biz Stone (@biz) making an appearance on the Colbert Report (@ColbertEpisodes). Not just young Hollywood but even veteran journalists Barbara Walters (@barbarajwalters), Larry King (@kingsthings) and Daniel Schorr (@danielschorr) are getting on to Twitter.

A lot has been written about said about the celebrities themselves but what does this mean for the average Twitter user? Looking into the blogosphere, some authors have been enthusiastic about this development, others a little apprehensive while a few have kept a neutral point of view.

I had my own ideas about what this meant for Twitter users but I decided to conduct a small survey of users to see what their opinion was on the matter. From Tuesday, 3/21 9 am until Wednesday, 3/22 9 am, I ran a poll on TwtPoll, asking users for their opinions on the issue.

Over the 24 hours, the link was ReTweeted dozens of times and I ended up with 177 replies. While this doesn't sound like much, this gave it a rank of the #15 most popular poll on TwitPoll so that is a good gauge of what kind of response to expect in a Twitter poll.

So what did I find out? Well, I have a perfectly sized screen capture which I can't convert into a photo file so I'm left with text:

Question: What do you think about the recent rush of celebrities on to Twitter?

1. The more users, the better (14%)
2. It's exciting! I think it will enhance Twitter's image (9%)
3. It's like the E! Channel now. Who needs these celebrities? (7%)
4. I fear Twitter will lose its edge and become mainstream (11%)
5. I think that the flood of new users will mean more Fail Whales and will tax Twitter's system (11%)
6. I focus on my own social network. Lots of new users & celebs doesn't affect my experience (44%)
7. Other (3%)

Seeing how #1 & #2 are positive responses, and #3, #4 & #5 are negative responses, we can lump together these responses. I asked those choosing "Other" to write and tell me of their reason which boiled down to either a) I'm undecided/mixed feelings or b) I don't care or am indifferent. I think it is fair to put #6 & #7 answers together as "neutral".

Question: What do you think about the recent rush of celebrities on to Twitter?

• Positive response: 23%
• Negative response: 29%
• Neutral response: 47%

Because of rounding off, the total comes to 99%, not 100%.

These are close to the attitudes I had expected to see. The excitement surrounding getting Tweets from celebrities and the high media profile of a network we love mixed with fears of Twitter crashing or losing its "coolness" factor obscured the fact that for many people, celebrities have little or no consequence to their experience on Twitter.

Even with a conservative estimate of 10 million Twitter accounts, the fact is that only 13% of Twitterers (roughly 1 out of 8) follow the comings & goings of the Ashton Kutcher, the most popular person on Twitter. Or, that is, they have follow his account, we have no idea how many followers actually read the messages they are sent.

But for nearly half of Twitterers polled, they concentrate their efforts on their own social network. Twitter isn't a social network, it is 10 million different social networks that share some nodes in common with each other. If you don't follow someone, there is little chance you will encounter them unless their message is ReTweeted by someone who follow. And it might be safe to say that even some of the people who responded positively & negatively to the question also hold this view of their own personal Twitterverse.

Celebrities do affect the culture of Twitter, whether the infrastructure holds up, the public perception of the network but individual actors, singers, politicians, athletes or talk show hosts are not the people who cause most of us to join a social network and check in regularly with "our people."

Hollywood might add a few sprinkles on top, but our network of friends and acquaintances is the cupcake we have for dessert.

P.S. Because I neglected to set up and "end date" for this poll, it will actually be running indefinitely and the votes have increased to 184 while I've written this blog entry. Feel free to add your two cents: http://twtpoll.com/3vpb5n

Tweens on Twitter?

Last week, The Jonas Brothers created a Twitter account at @JonasBrothers. At first, just a few announcements were posted to the account but the band members began talking with fans yesterday. Their followers reached 60,000 in less than a week and added another 6,000 since last night. They could easily reach 100,000 followers by the end of the week and could surpass Britney Spears (#2) & Ashton Kutcher (#3) in followers if they keep up this momentum.

The Jonas Brothers are huge among the Tween (8-13 years old) audience as well as some Teens. They were mobbed the outside of the Manhattan MTV offices during Jonas Brothers Week last year which I saw for myself when I tried to pass by. The band earned about $12 million in 2007 and in 2008 they were listed #9 on the richest pop acts of 2008 list making over sixty-two million dollars.

Twitter has experienced different waves of users: 1) the tech, early first adopters (2006-2007), 2) social media types, bloggers and some entrepreneurs (2007-2008), 3) marketing folks, companies & celebrities (2008-2009) [these are general trends, YMMV!]. But Teens have never showed much interest in Twitter, they seemed to prefer phone calls, texting and traditional instant messaging to a "micro-blogging" social network.

But the presence of Teen/Tween celebrities could change that aversion. Twitter offers the illusion of immediate and intimate contact with pop idols. Although people like Ashton Kutcher & Miley Cyrus don't follow many noncelebrities, they will selectively (like 1 out 10,000) respond to people's @replies to them. This possibility of direct contact is very seductive in our celebrity-oriented popular culture.

Whether young people will begin to flock to Twitter remains to be seen, it's been less than a day since @JonasBrothers has been active but when it was, Jonas-related topics were 4 of the top 10 trending topics on Twitter. But Miley Cyrus has been Tweeting for less than 3 weeks and already has 253,318 Followers while Demetria Lovato (@ddlovato), another Disney celebrity, has 133,832 Followers. I can only see this growing as Tween fans are extremely devoted audiences.

The larger question to most of us is how an influx of younger users would change the atmosphere on Twitter. Twitter's Terms of Use insist that people creating new accounts be at least 13 years old but Twitter's execs have been shown to be very hands off in terms of regulating user behavior beyond suspending the most obvious spam accounts. I think they will either end up ignoring this new user base or changing the TOU.

I don't see a whole lot of cross-over between the Tween/Teen crowd and Adult users of Twitter. Older users are primarily involved in Twitter as a form of expression & interaction with others like themselves, as entertainment or to create business connections. There are a few enterprising teenagers who have large adult followings but that is in spite of their young age, not because of it.

My other guess is that--in my foggy memory--kids like to talk to other teenagers about each other so you might see more of them adopting protected status for their updates. This would give them control over who to allow into their conversational circle and allay parental fears about creepy people on the network engaging their children.

What do you think?