The Sad Truth About Twitter's Top Users

25 Points

Not a day goes by that we don't hear something about Ashton Kutcher and Twitter in the news; after all, it's been months since Kutcher won the race to a million Twitter users, and the often-outspoken Hollywood celebrity is a fairly active Twitter user. Indeed, we hear quite a bit about Twitter's top users in the news - because the vast majority of the "top" Twitter users (the most followed Twitter users) are celebrities - meaning that for all the talk of what a revolutionary communication medium Twitter is, when it comes to following, there's a very narrow distribution around Twitter's top users that mirrors what we see on television or in print media.

The list of the top 20 Twitter users reads like an episode of TMZ. Out of the top twenty Twitter users, sixteen of them are celebrities - 80%. Three of the remaining four are news outlets (one of which is, it should be pointed out, a fake news outlet), and the last is Twitter itself. Many of the top Twitter users don't actually do their own Tweeting; Britney Spears, and Barack Obama are just two users who obviously don't actually tweet themselves; they employ people to maintain their Twitter accounts.

So why, then, do they attract the most followers? If Britney Spears' Twitter account is nothing more than yet another mouthpiece for the music industry that surrounds her, why do people bother offering their ears to listen?

The answer is multifaceted; part of the problem lies in the architecture of Twitter's sign-up process. After users have completed the sign-up, Twitter recommends a few users to them to follow. These top twenty users show up often on this list of users, making them into snowballs whose followers grows more and more numerous with each new Twitter sign-up. It's too bad, because Twitter could refine the process of discovering an initial batch of users and make it slightly more intuitive, perhaps rolling it together with a real-time search to give users an accurate picture of what people are doing and saying on Twitter - since cramming the same fifty most popular users down everyone's throat doesn't lead to a diverse conversational model.

Beyond the superficial programmatic explanation for the star-studded top Twitter users list, there exists a deeper and more disturbing truth - that these celebrities are the most followed people on Twitter because a significant majority of Twitter users are interested in what they have to say, even if they know it's simply the mouthpiece of a larger organization.

In fact, Twitter isn't that much different than the real world - we're fascinated by the littlest details of the lives of celebrities, yet thoroughly bored with those details in the lives of those around us, despite there being little qualitative difference between the two. Those sixteen celebrities are followed because they are, in the eyes of society, worthy and important people to follow.

Unfortunately, the sad truth is that in terms of conversations, the most worthwhile Twitter users don't currently, and will never, make this list. Twitter's success isn't in providing podiums to the already-famous; that may be how the numbers play out, but that's not the situation on the ground. Twitter's success is rooted, rather, in the fact that the richness and simplicity of the medium allows us to easily discover meaningful, engaged users and followers - not jump in line to be the latest person to hear what Ashton Kutcher has to say.

For your reference, here's the list of the current top 20 most-followed Twitter users, fresh from our Twitrank.

# Name Screen Name Followers Updates Following
1 ashton kutcher aplusk  3986606 3998 262
2 Britney Spears britneyspears  3791600 331 429773
3 Ellen DeGeneres TheEllenShow  3743950 898 10285
4 CNN Breaking News cnnbrk  2805935 1244 17
5 Barack Obama BarackObama  2684193 418 749648
6 Twitter twitter  2655089 581 111
7 Oprah Winfrey Oprah  2627494 88 17
8 Kim Kardashian KimKardashian  2611163 2291 69
9 John Mayer johncmayer  2609247 2452 72
10 Ryan Seacrest RyanSeacrest  2603409 1809 122
11 THE_REAL_SHAQ THE_REAL_SHAQ  2545716 2487 566
12 Demi Moore mrskutcher  2294077 3134 115
13 Ashley Tisdale ashleytisdale  2267952 819 77
14 iamdiddy iamdiddy  2246066 3931 192
15 Jimmy Fallon jimmyfallon  2238310 1656 160
16 Lance Armstrong lancearmstrong  2214474 3663 135
17 Coldplay coldplay  2195150 503 2581
18 The New York Times nytimes  2094382 38727 190
19 Miley Cyrus mileycyrus  2082993 2038 68
20 The Onion TheOnion  1926744 3548 394354
Dec 7, 2009
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Comments
Twittown Comments
Submitted by Rei (not verified) on Mar 7, 2010 23:58 says:

I'm following writer Paulo Coelho's tweets. And so far He is the most real to follow on twitter. And he interacts with his twitter followers.

Submitted by Allison Rizk (not verified) on Feb 23, 2010 22:23 says:

I was thinking the other day how much celebrities can get away with. A user like me who has about 1500 followers couldn't get away with lame status updates unless they provided VALUE...although tons of celebrities just use Twitter as a stream of consciousness.

For me and many others, you need to be extremely conscious of every single tweet. Most of them are pre-meditated in order to attract more users.

Not only that, is there REALLY a powerful value in having that many followers? There is a singer/songwriter named Tony Lucca (@luccadoes) who is a FABULOUS musician. He has over half a million followers. I asked him if he has a spike in the people who go to his shows because of his # of followers. He said he was somehow chosen as a "Featured Twitter" user and miraculously got all these followers. He said it's been great to attract promoters and people wanting to sponsor him, but not necessarily to compel masses of people to see him on tour as it might indicate. Btw, more people need to go see him. He's amazing live.

Really thought-provoking article. Thanks for writing-

Submitted by Vettweeter (not verified) on Feb 23, 2010 22:18 says:

Twitter should suggest people to follow based on keywords in tweets, or people that followers are following. I was very disappointed that the suggested tweeters were all so mainstream and not even slightly customised.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Dec 22, 2009 21:11 says:

TWITTER ''REAL PEOPLE'' WITH INTELLECT...AND, SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY, WILL TAKE OVER...EVENTUALLY. -FIND EACH-OTHER AND THEN.. UPGRADE THE ENVIRONMENT HERE. TILL THEN, I'M HERE TO AMUSE MYSELF!!!

Submitted by HeyMonge (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 12:18 says:

Twitter gives people access to follow and be followed by anyone. So how does the top 20 really affect you? It's 20 people that will most likely not respond to you.

And that matters how?

It doesn't. The people you want to meet and connect with will be the ones that are in a place to respond.

So the end of Twitter? Meh, use it right , you'll be fine.

~J

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 11:55 says:

I concur with much of what was already said... but had to point out the idiocy of those "click here to get 2342 followers in ten minutes" thing... I checked the profile of one the people I'm following (who all of a sudden started those tweets! grr) and that person only had 17 followers! Yeah... sell me the brooklyn bridge too why dontcha...

Submitted by Kelly Poivre (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 14:21 says:

I totally agree! Alyssa Milano should be in that list.
She shares a lot and respond to people, not always but it would be impossible to respond constantly to everyone, it would be a 24/7 job to do that...
She won't let anyone tweet instead of her self.
She really cares about people and not only her fans...
Check out http://tinyurl.com/ylbf3a5 this is one of the examples of who and what Alyssa cares about.

Submitted by jezzound (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 13:49 says:

i agree, should put Alyssa Milano on the list because she gv lots of great/good input to her followers.
And take mileycyrus down from that list, shes not exsist anymore!

Submitted by Sweetlliloz (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 13:29 says:

I agree out of that list I only have Ellen. Where as I do follow a few famous people the very talented person above me and a few other actors which have not made that list. I also follow my friends most of them Online so I can see what they are up to when I've not been online.

Submitted by DoggieCouture (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 11:35 says:

This list in incomplete, @alyssa_milano should be on here more than some of the others mentioned.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 11:13 says:

Twitter is what you make it, like most of life. You have the ability to choose who you follow and who follows you. You choose who to interact with and who to ignore. Just as in life you can avoid the groups of people you find annoying - it's like being in a neighborhood bar and choosing to accept the drink from the drunk frat boy or instead chatting with the bartender about Proust.

Submitted by Annie (not verified) on Dec 17, 2009 10:16 says:

Although the fake posers, spammers, very rude & crazy people and sluts are in abundance, there are genuine people, even a spattering of genuine celebrities (who tweet themselves) that make Twitter interesting.
It's not a matter of numbers who follow you that makes life interesting but the number of times you smile, even laugh and information you get.
Initially I only wanted to follow the celebrities and news but eventually found some really sound individuals who make sense. Individuals who have dreams and aspirations and who interact on an intelligent basis with me.
It's a different world out there but it's interesting and entertaining.

I was a facebook "addict" for a while, finding old classmates who I haven't seen in decades. But when my page was hacked, I lost interest in it. So I turned to Twitter. One day I will tire of it but surely, this experience has been quite fulfilling.

Submitted by Toby Marshall (not verified) on Dec 16, 2009 13:25 says:

We advise businesses on how to use Twitter properly. This means minimising selling.

To carefully target people they want to engage with. And to create a theme of interest, hopefully humorous - ours which is just starting are the Online Darwins - awards for really dumb marketing mistakes. Maybe Twitter should get an award for how they suggest who to connect to..

This sick and sad celebrity takeover makes it hard to convince small businesses to even put a toe in the water. However, it has to be said that it's because of all the media attention surrounding this is one of the key reasons why Twitter has become so popular.

It's a balancing act and if they don't sort out the mess and focus on their priorities it could be good bye Twitter, welcome Micro Blogging version 2.

Submitted by Tracy@HallofFameMoms (not verified) on Dec 15, 2009 00:15 says:

Really, you choose who you want to follow and not all celelbrities (do any?) follow "we" the little people back? I only follow a few and I rarely see them Tweet anyways. You can also block followers. I don't think its a big deal.

Submitted by Diana (not verified) on Dec 14, 2009 08:26 says:

I have been part of twitter since before mainstream popularity hit, and I agree that it is a sad fact that what i loved about it has become overshadowed by the hype and marketing.

So much so that I have thought of ending my account for some time now, and except for the fact that there are a few wonderful people i interact with, I would have done so and may still do.

Hope that it comes back to its roots and regains more of its original authenticity.

Submitted by BliZzarD571 (not verified) on Dec 10, 2009 03:57 says:

If the Miley Cyrus twitter account doesn't exist, what the heck is doing in the list.

Submitted by Anglishteacha (not verified) on Dec 9, 2009 09:50 says:

I signed up for Twitter for entertainment and education. A friend turned me on to it. She seems to have found a group of followers who actually converse. That's what I wanted. I've been cleaning up my following and my followers. No more self- promos and no more spys. I'm not looking for lasting relationships but rather witty banter. I mean we've only got 140 characters; not exactly relationship building stuff, but entertaining value nonetheless. I like to hear what others have to stay. So far I am disappointed, but will hang in for a while later.

Submitted by 4030lisa (not verified) on Dec 9, 2009 08:56 says:

It is sad but true! Upon sign up you get pegged with people you have ablsolutely NOTHING in common with, too bad OUR preferances dont come into play on the sign up/set up. We might be better off and it would help avoid the auto tweeters and bots. (who would choose to follow them)? It has become a poor reflection of what Twitter was meant to be with all the "make money with automated tweets" or how about "Get a thousand new followers by clicking on this link".
This was meant to be a conversational, and quick personal info posting site, why did numbers start becoming more important than what is being said and by whom? The whole premise appears to have been corrupted somehow and perhaps it could have been avoided and maybe even corrected in the future with a few questions upon sign up that would have put "like" with "like.
How wonderful that would be for the spammers, auto tweeters and the bots who could find each other and NOT us! A retool is most heartily suggested.

Submitted by Peyton Stafford (not verified) on Dec 8, 2009 14:02 says:

I added Trendsmap to my starting browser tabs. It shows prevalence of Twitter topics in real time. Clearly Twitter is a hit with the masses. Even though it supports communication among us geeks, it is primarily a tool for the entertainment-obsessed masses.

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