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Has it ever occured to how how powerful Twitter really is? I’m not only talking about Twitter as a service either. It’s more the people on it. How much power they hold.
I decided to be scientific about it. I’d do an experiment. I’d get one of the big shot tweeters to tweet a pretty general question, and watch the response. Simple enough. I chose a big shot twitter-er that I’d had dealings with before, who’s always willing to help out with things, and who also has 507,974 followers. The man is Stephen Fry.
I’d been watching him for a while, marvelling just how many responses the man gets to his tweets, no matter what the content. Take this one for example:
As soon as I saw this, I quickly did a search through tweets for ones containing ‘@stephenfry’ (ones people direct toward him). My mouth literally dropped open at how many tweets I saw. Most of them were simple ones like ‘@stephenfry Hope you feel better soon x’. As I watched these sorts of tweets flood in, I began to think.. is this only the tip of the iceberg? Sure, most of these were just e-get well cards, but does that mean that’s all they could be? Fry has a massive following hanging on his every word. Could that be harnessed?
So I knocked off 3 quick DMs: (read from the bottom up)
9 minutes later, what floats into my inbox?
And what appeared on Stephen’s Twitter stream?
Booyaa!
After doing my mini celebratory jig, I again pointed my browser toward a twitter search for @stephenfry. I arrived roughly 30 seconds after his tweet was sent, and look what I saw:
and that’s only the ones I can display in one browser window!
I left the browser open about 2-3 minutes, and look what I saw when I looked again:
What that yellow box is that in the time that Firefox has taken to load up that page, 289 tweets have been posted having @stephenfry in them somewhere.
I counted up the responses in the first 30 minutes of his tweet, there was roughly 140 responses. I split these into categories: Positive, negative, ‘what is digg?’ and Advising to use something different
Negative: 50
Positive: 42
‘What is digg?’: 24
Advising something different: 25
As they were advising, Reddit.com got 21 votes, Stumble Upon got 3 and Delicious.com got 1.
And if we hone in on the Advice slice…
This is definitely something to mull over. Did you realize that Twitter folk had such power to gain responses and following? I didn’t. Well, do now. Finally, it struck me as I went through the responses, just how much some people adore Fry.. take a look:
This woman, chances are who’s never met Fry is.. actually I’m not quite sure how to describe it. Some people literally do just idolize him.
Again:
Just following him like sheep. Random twitter person sees Fry doing something, random twitter person does same.
Not sure if I find this odd or not, but it’s certainly startling…
So, in closing, what have we learned? What do we take away from this? What other uses of this instant communication with several hundred thousand people can we have? OK, getting well wishes about sore tummies is grand, but think of the overall value. News would become worldwide within 10 minutes. That’s what’d be the value.
You could promote events, like Twestivals or charities, and they’d get mounds of support. You could keep millions up to date with events like G8 summits or involve them all in contests for radio shows. The list is as varied as it is endless!
Twitter is becoming the latest thing to bring us all things instantaneously. We no longer have to wait for our news. It’s there for us.
Fry doesn’t prove this. He’s an example of Twitter’s greatest feature. The fact that you can ask a question and get instant answers to it. People you have no previous contact with come and answer you, and that’s the amazing social dynamics of Twitter that just isn’t there in email.
With my Fry example, the Gutenberg example isn’t strictly true. Fry wasn’t spreading news. If he’d said ‘OMG just saw three buses do flip over on the N1′, that’d be news, and it’d be like Gutenberg. Also, Gutenberg was circumventing those kings and popes, while Twitter isn’t. Still, my Fry example may not fit into the Gutenberg example, but so much of Twitter does
Many thanks to Stephen Fry on this post, for DMing me back so quick and participating. You can follow Stephen on Twitter here. Thanks also to Darragh for a quick hand with part of this also
I do think the effect this would will have on digg is perhaps the most valuable data
Tommy, I’ve just seen your stats and I think they give an even greater demonstration of the power of Twitter and @stephenfry. Over 9000 page loads so far! Well done you!
I feel you don’t quite get it.
I follow Stephen Fry because I feel there is a lack of genuine intelligent people influencing our lives, politicians we have are sub-standard so we turn to the ones we trust.
I think we have a national treasure in Stephen, hence the following. So I’m not sure your research has been used correctly. We trust him and have come to adore him. We have few intelligent idols in England, and the world at the moment. Stephen makes things seem more refreshing.
I would say reflect, go back and think again re. the research. But, keep it up.
This isn’t a valid survey – 140 responses out of a universe of 500k is statistically insignificant. You’ve not shown anything other than some people want to make a connection with Stephen Fry.
WOW 54 comments !!!!!!!!!!! 0.O and posted just today. 0.o
Freaky………………………………………
Media has such a impact on our daily lives…. *What would we do with out it* ;P
Go media stuff and thingy-ma-bobs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* Personal joke ;P
What I do not understand about your experiment is that it’s not just twitter. News can already become worldwide in an instant- Google News has the top headlines. This is how the internet works.
The ” * ” part is meant to reed
( What would I do without you? )
;P
The ” * * ” part is meant to reed;
( What would I do without you? )
;P
Joined twitter earlier today and this is one of the first things I come across – somehow I think that is quite ironic…
If you have a celebrity that’s truly loved, this followng response… it’s not just social networking. It’s taken different forms, but you have fans that camp out for hours waiting for tickets or to see a celebrity that’s rumoured to be in that very spot. How about the Beatles, when John remarked they were more popular than Jesus, at the time.
But what is special about Twitter, is that you are connecting on a personal level. Stephen Fry, Alan Davies, Kevin Spacey, Tim Minchin all share their personal woes and glories for the day. Stephen posts the most interesting little tidbits, and I love QI to pieces!
“@Emily, I say again that I believe people need to come to terms that they must treat the internet as a public place. Nothing they wouldn’t say in public to their face, as they say.”
Yeah, that’s fair enough (I read the other comments before I posted!) – but you’ve put a comment that can be traced back to her. If you’re going to compare this to a public place, then surely what you’re doing is the equivalent of talking about her behind her back? Unless, like I said before, you’ve asked her already.
Interesting experiment, but I just want to point out that giving / taking techie advice to / from Mr Fry is not necessarily because of his celebrity status. Or rather it is not necessarily because of his celebrity as an actor / performer / writer etc. Since he has had a newspaper column on tech stuff (Dork Talk in the Guardian) he is by no means an ingenu when it comes to geeky questions. I don’t know anyone else who has as many followers, but if there are people with many followers but no “geeky” background it would be an interesting comparison to make.
Just look at Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN debacle
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/17/ashton.cnn.twitter.battle/
Twitter is huge, I’m thinking V for Vendetta concepts.
Loff Sox xox
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@Emily Yes this is all in the public forum and can legally be used anywhere by anybody, and since when has ‘talking behind her back’ not been a part of daily life..where would conversation be without this vital element?
Very interesting experiment. I’ve been thinking that Twitter could be the next ‘instant news’ medium. I have been looking for ways to promote my gadget website and have been a Twit for a while now. Every now and again when I see a new gadget or read a bit of gadget news I start a Twitter conversation. See how it goes… Thanks
I’m still trying to get into twitter. Not really seeing the point of it yet.
As for sheep, I’m not one of those :-) I wasn’t interested in the Dig post at all :-D
I found your site through yesterdays Fry experiment. I don’t follow Fry on twitter becuase I don’t have twitter but occasionally I look at his page and it would never have occured to me to do something like that! It was really interesting to see the effect that one question could generate. Anyway I just wanted to say how impressed I was with your very productive day off!
Elizabeth Barlow
I think the difference between Stephen Fry and other tweeters is that he is already established as a trustworthy writer and broadcaster; he’s a familiar face. So not sure whether his influence is down to the power of Twitter alone. I think Twitter is simply a powerful medium which allows people access into somebody’s life they already like and admire. I must admit I usually go on just to see what Stephen Fry is up to because his work really interests me!
In today’s ‘Telegraph’: Bishop of Paisley Philip Tartaglia (president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland communications group) on Twitter: “In dialogue with others we need to be wary of the inane chatter that can go on in the digital world which does nothing to promote growth in understanding and tolerance.” Despite initial reservations, after a month I’ve found it quite the reverse.
Stephen Fry’s tweet re OU’s “Devolve Me” game resulted in peak of 52,523 new visitor hits in Feb see: http://iet.open.ac.uk/about/news.cfm