DeWitt Clinton, heckuva name, recently sampled some Twitter data to determine the number of active users on Twitter. The sampling is rather exhaustive (at least for this guy with ADD ((I don’t really have ADD.)) !) and, if accurate, would shed a lot of light on a number of things.
I’ve done my own, rather simplified version, of sampling some Twitter data. I was primarily trying to determine the number of “real followers” I had as opposed to what Twitter says. I came up with much lower numbers than Clinton did, but then again his sampling was much larger. At current my Twitter account hovers around 1,600 followers. If Clinton’s data is accurate, that puts me at about 350 active followers.
That seems to be right on the money. Either way, it shows that those that have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter really don’t have that kind of pull. But they still have about 30% of that pull.
Source: Sampling Twitter.
Via: Andy Baio.
ought-oh! I’ve got 0 followers and only 2 that I follow so far…?
smile
Inexperienced curiosity:
Do you think most of the twitter nation hand picks their followers based on a qualified point of interest, or do most people water skip across twitizens picking up as many as they can then relying on a process of elimination through on the fly reading from there?
I can’t imagine how I would ever get the time to select 100 followers let alone 350…I’m thinking a dozen or so.
Maybe I’m a slow reader or just don’t get the true point of twittering, but I’m trying to follow people that have at least 30% (no pun intended) of something I like to know.
As for following friends and relatives…none of them either have Macs, iPhones or sit in front of a computer enough to participate…er, uh at least that’s what I think is the hold up. Realistically, they probably wouldn’t care to know what I’m doing throughout the day. (ha)
So far haven’t found twitter.com search too helpful with having to know a specific name or e-address. I’m happily married so I’m not expecting any passionate twitter painted (corny pun) connections so I guess for now I’ll just take ‘er slow and easy until the light bulb comes on (or goes out altogether).
smiling.
P.S. I do enjoy reading your tweets and this blog though Colin, so keep on trucking (70′s coolspeak) and maybe I’ll grow a little younger with my age.
Thanks for your thoughtful remarks Bernard. I too enjoy your blog, your art, and of course the fact that you’re a Steelers fan.
I do not know what the common trend is on Twitter with regards to how people select who they follow. Like any other social network, I would think, many people just like to be sociable and follow everyone they “know” on the Internet. I do not do that, but it is obvious that many people do.
I hope you find some value in Twitter at some point as I do believe it is a very valuable resource for a great many things. For instance, if I want to see what people are saying about the company I work for, I can do that. Or, if I just want to see how others are using cast iron. That alone has its own value.
Colin, I’m a changed man! Geesh, I must be twitterifically challenged?
I don’t know what I have been typing for days (it seems) but I never came across search.twitter.com before.
I thought I tried every link from the twitter site that I could…but all good now.
thanks.
I’m working on that Flikr group thing too, so gimme a couple years and I’ll be joining the group and uploading photos with them (if they’ll have me) in no time.
Lol!