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Will the majority of the top 25 Twitterers be techies on May 2, 2009?

Settled as No

I count 3 - Ev Williams, Kevin Rose and Pete Cashmore

Background:

Background: According to CNET Twitter has just signed a term sheet for another $15 to $20 million in funding. It is one of those fantastic "huge audience growth now, figure out the business model later" plays. Sometimes they work out (Google), sometimes they don't (IM) and sometimes it is just to early to say (Digg, Facebook, YouTube).

In commenting on the recent news Business Week columnist Sarah Lacy stated that Twitter was "on the verge of potentially going mainstream in a big way" (http://tinyurl.com/6nkato). That's a pretty strong prediction from a journalist and I follow a lot of them. However, where is the evidence that Twitter is even on the verge of hitting the mainstream in a small way? TechCrunch report that they have around 200,000 active users per week. Even among early adopter tech community Twitter isn't that widely used.

One demographic of the population that it has reached almost complete acceptance (and in some instances road to Damascus type conversions) is among bloggers and journalists. The value of Twitter to that community for finding stories, breaking stories and marketing is huge. Definitely worth the effort of downloading the app, building the friend list, un-following the 'social spammers' and the lost productivity of being distracted all day. For the mainstream it just doesn't pass the cost/benefit test.

If you check out Twitterholic (www.twitterholic.com) you will see that 20 of the top 25 Twitterers are part of the tech crowd. There are five who aren't (Obama (1), HotDogsLadies (7), CNN (8), TastyBlogSnack (12) and Stephen Colbert (24)) although all of them are very popular with the tech crowd. Here is my prediction: In a year's time the majority of the top 25 Twitterers will still be techies.

Settlement details:This will be settled according to a count of the number of tech bloggers, tech entrepreneurs and tech journalists that are in the top 25 of the Twitterholic list (www.twitterholic.com) taken at mid-day on May 2, 2009.

 
Forecast history %
Yes
1%
No
99%
Settled as No on Mon 4th May 1:33am PST

Suspend date: Sat 2nd May 12pm PST
Settlement date: Mon 4th May 1:33am PST
Prediction cut-off: Predictions on this question after Sat 2nd May 12pm PST have been voided because they were made after the question could be settled

Initial likelihoods: Yes: 50%

Action history:

Created Fri 2nd May 2008 8:19am PST by nigeleccles[Admin]
Suspended Sat 2nd May 12pm PST : Suspend date reached
Settlement requested Mon 4th May 1:30am PST by keyeshoveden[Power User]: Hi - can this bre settled now? I wouldn't know where to look for the answer.
Settled as 'No' Mon 4th May 1:33am PST by nigeleccles[Admin]: I count 3 - Ev Williams, Kevin Rose and Pete Cashmore

Suspend date: Sat 2nd May 12pm PST
Settlement date: Mon 4th May 1:33am PST
Prediction cut-off: Predictions on this question after Sat 2nd May 12pm PST have been voided because they were made after the question could be settled details

 

Predictions (78)

8 weeks ago
mikpis predicted No (H$50 at 99%)
8 weeks ago
felix predicted No (H$10,000 at 98%)
9 weeks ago
greggles predicted No (H$10,000 at 97%)
9 weeks ago
keyeshoveden[Power User] predicted No (H$10,000 at 95%)
10 weeks ago
cookietime predicted No (H$300 at 94%)

Comments (2)

  1 Erik
February 27, 2009
CIA Following Bin Laden on Twitter
Hopes to Locate Madmen Via Tweets

In what some are calling a breakthrough in the hunt for the world's most wanted man, the Central Intelligence Agency revealed today that it is following Osama bin Laden on Twitter.

The decision to track Mr. bin Laden's movements, moods, and musical tastes came late last week after the agency discovered he was using the popular social networking utility.

"We thought we were detecting an increase in chatter from Osama bin Laden," CIA chief Leon Panetta told reporters today. "What it turned out to be was an increase in tweets."

Mr. Panetta said the agency's success in tracking Mr. bin Laden via Twitter would depend on its ability to decode a series of seemingly indecipherable messages.

"So far he is tweeting in code, using such terms as LOL and OMFG," Mr. Panetta said. "At this point we have no idea what he is trying to say."

The spy chief said that Mr. bin Laden's Twitter usage seems to peak between the hours of 8 and 9 PM on Mondays: "This may simply be a coincidence, but that's when ‘Gossip Girl' is on."

Elsewhere, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said that if he is injured at any point during his marriage to Gisele Bundchen, Matt Cassel will go in for him.

Andy Borowitz
posted 18 weeks ago
  2 greggles
http://twitterholic.com/
1. Ashton Kutcher - actor - not tech
2. CNN - tv news show - not tech
3. Britney - singer - not tech
4. Ellen Degeneres Show - actress/daytime tv - not tech
5. Barack Obama - politician - not tech
6. Twitter - I guess this is tech
7. John Mayer - musician - not tech
8 Jimmy Fallon - comedian/actor - not tech
9. The Real Shaq - athlete - not tech
10. Ryan Seacrest - host / "entrepreneur" - not tech
11. Demi Moore - actress - not tech
12. "Diddy" - music producer - not tech
13. New York Times - newspaper - not tech
14. Lance Armstrong - athlete - not tech
15. Perez Hilton - "blogger"? - somewhat tech...
16. Al Gore - politician - not tech (aside from inventing the...)
17. Coldplay - musicians - not tech
18. The Onion - comedy news - not tech
19. Evan Williams - twitter fonder - tech
20. NPRPolitics - news - not tech
21. Kim Kardashian - celebutante - not tech

That's more than enough not tech folks. Even if you count border-cases like Perez Hilton or Al Gore it's not a majority.
posted 8 weeks ago

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