@Wossy @StephenFry @Schofe

By Adam Parker

A few months ago I wrote about Twitter, the microblogging platform that was starting to get some attention. Well since then the UK seems to have gone Tweeting mad!

For those of you who haven't already heard about microblogging it is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (140 characters in Twitter's case) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging from your...

...mobile phone, instant messaging or the web.

The increase in awareness of Twitter during 2009 has arguably been due to two main reasons; the rise of the celebrity Tweeters and the Hudson Bay plane crash landing.

I mentioned in my previous article about Barack Obama and his 140,000 followers, well last time I looked that had risen to 280,000. This means that 280,000 people on Twitter have opted to "follow" the updates put out on the @BarackObama account.

Some other celebs and their 2009 rises in follows are shown below:

These are staggering numbers by any stretch of the imagination given such a short period of time. Stephen Fry for instance has effectively had one new person follow him every 25 seconds on average over the last six weeks!

These numbers probably indicate two things - the celebrity culture that now exists in the UK and the rise in popularity of Twitter in general. This is because the first question you have to answer after you have setup a Twitter account is "who should I start following?". In most cases people may not know many people on Twitter other than celebrities which makes... continued on page two >

 

 

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