White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Launches Twitter Account
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has launched a Twitter account, @PressSec. His first tweet reads, "Learning about "the twitter" - easing into this with first tweet - any tips?"
The Twitter account's bio says "An official WH twitter account. Comments & messages received through official WH pages are subject to the PRA and may be archived."
The launch of the Press Secretary Twitter account comes shortly after news that Obama administration is seeking a Social Networks Manager to manage the President's Facebook, Twitter and MySpace accounts.
Those looking for Twitter followers and/or attention at parties or clubs might try these Twitter stockings. The stockings are sold here on Etsy. The stockings might get more followers if they had your Twitter username but that wouldn't be very subtle. Not that these are subtle.
Mashable reports that Twitter has started rolling out local trending topics. So far just 1% of users have the service.
"We're rolling out local trends to 1 percent of users today, but we'll share more information when it reaches a larger audience hopefully sometime next week. We'll keep you posted when that happens."
Twitter trends have been a feature that is unique to Twitter. Twitter is able to offer the feature which provides a real-time look at what is going on in the world. The local trends will take this feature and apply it to specific cities, towns and regions. Only 15 U.S. cities are supported by local Twitter trends so far but that is likely to change.
Mashable reports that the word "Twilf" has entered Twitter Vernacular thanks to an episode of Current's Super News. In the cartoon Sarah Palin is referred to as a Twilf. The word has a more wholesome meaning then you might think. The Urban Dictionary says Twilf is a "Tweep I'd like to follow." The problem with Sarah Palin being a Twilf is she hasn't been twittering lately. Here is the crazy Current cartoon where the word twilf comes up.
Britney Spears' Twitter account, @britneyspears, was hacked for at least the third time today. A downside to having a high profile Twitter acount is that hack attempts are more likely. Britney's account is the 2nd most followed and the 8th most listed. Unlike in the past when hackers have taken over groups of high profile accounts Britney's Twitter appears to have been the sole target. The hackers tried to make it seem as if Britney is a Satan worshipper.
Britney's web team - which has its own list now on Twitter - tweeted the following apology.
Jim Carrey's bizarre new website should win the award for best version of a Twitter bird. The website has a bird with Jim Carrey's head on it that shares his latest tweets. If you click on the bird it goes to Jim Carrey's Twitter account, @jimcarrey. Well played Jim Carrey.
We have compiled a list here of the 200+ most listed Twitter accounts. Listorious has launched a list here of the most followed lists on Twitter. Twitterholic has a list here of the most followed Twitter accounts. All three of these help measure how much influence a Twitter account has but none of them alone provide an accurate measure of a Twitterer's reach or influence.
Trying to measure how much reach or influence a given Twitter account has is an increasingly complex issue. You would need to factor in followers as well as the number of lists someone is on. In addition, specific lists will also be important because Listorious's list of the most followed lists shows that being on some lists gives Twitter users more influence than others. Twitter's list widgets allow lists to be embedded on webpages. Twitterers listed on lists that get embedded could get more exposure. There is also the issue of private lists which may not be added to a Twitterer's list total.
The list of the most listed Twitterers has Barack Obama way out in front which seems appropriate since he is the President. The list is heavily dominated by celebrities. There are few news or tech-related accounts on the list. In this way the list of the most listed Twitterers is very similar to the list of the most followed Twitterers. However, the highest ranked celebrities on the most listed list are different than those on the most followed list. Taylor Swift is ranked second on the most listed list but she is not (yet) one of the top 25 most followed accounts. Taylor Swift's high list ranking seems logical given that she was one of the biggest Twitter stories this year because of the Kanye West incident at the VMAs. A couple young Disney stars - Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez - also rank very highly on the most listed list yet they are much farther down on the most followed. This could indicate that many listmakers are very young but it is still way too early with lists to read much into this. The only obvious trend is that those who can be bothered enough to make lists love to put celebrities on them and that celebrities crush everyone else when it comes to getting put on lists. Listmakers also like humor - Shit My Dad Says is ranked fifth and The Onion is 20th.
When it comes to list of the top lists on Listorious what stands out is that very few lists are followed by many people. Only the Twitter Team list has a large follower number of over 37,000. This number is big because Twitter put a link to the list on every single Twitter user's homepage. The number actually seems kind of small considering ever single person on Twitter was given a chance to follow it. The fact that not many lists have very many followers could mean that people prefer to make their own lists. Lists may be more of a personal thing than a social thing. It could also mean that many users are not aware of Listorious or the fact that they can follow other people's lists. It's also possible that they simply could not be bothered. Again, it is too early to tell because lists are only about a week old. It takes time to make lists and many people still haven't had time to try them out.
Celebrity Twitter Accounts Among Most Listed Twitter Accounts
There are some blog posts discussing the most listed Twitter accounts here and here that claim Mashable is the second most listed Twitter account. It hasn't been #2 for several days. Here is the correct ranking of the top most listed accounts.
Update 11-2-09: You can find a longer list of the Most Listed Twitter Accounts here.
It's good to see Mashable up near the top of the most listed Twitter accounts, but Mashable has been falling. The list of the most listed has been trending more celebrity since lists were turned on for all Twitterers a couple days ago. A week ago Mashable was ranked first and a couple days ago it was ranked fourth. Now it is ranked seventh. The trend that seems to be shaping up here is that celebrities will have to most listed Twitter accounts sort of like what you see on Twitterholic, a site that shows Twitter accounts with the most followers. However, the celebrities with the most listed accounts is a turning out to be a little different then the celebrity accounts with the most followers.
Note: You can find a list of 400+ celebrities here, a list of Twitter tools and apps here and lots more lists at Listorious.com.
Barack Obama, Taylor Swift Are Most Listed Twitterers
President Barack Obama and Taylor Swift appear to be the most listed people or organizations on Twitter as of this writing. This could easily change as there are still many people who do not yet have Twitter lists enabled. Here is a short list of the most listed Twitterers as of right now, noonish on Thursday, October 29th.
I created this short list manually and it will no doubt be automated by someone using Twitter's API in the days ahead. It's probably not a surprise to see celebrities and news organization leading the pack. Early on the most listed list had more tech people as you can see here but that has changed somewhat. Those who first had Twitter lists was probably dominated by peeps in the tech industry. Who is on the most lists won't really tell the whole story because determining reach on Twitter has become much more complex. There is the issue that people can follow other people's lists which may be hard to calculate. There are also plain old follower counts but even those don't tell you the whole story because a lot of people have followers that have abandoned Twitter.
Lists and followers will be used to measure how much reach a person or organization has on Twitter even if the measure is imperfect. The great thing about lists is not as a way to measure popularity but that they allow people to organize twitter accounts and their incoming tweets. This way they can get a lot more value out of Twitter.
Update 11-1-09: You can see an update list of the most listed Twitter accounts here.
The Onion Covers Parents Facebook Stalking Their College-Aged Kids
The Onion has a pretty hilarious video about how parents can use Facebook and Twitter to keep tabs on their children. The helicopter parent in this video is quite obsessed with monitoring her son's Facebook and Twitter activity. Like any good Onion story there is some truth to it.
Twitter Lists are great new way to organize information and follow tweets on Twitter. The feature makes Twitter a lot more useful. It works best for categories. For example, you can create a list of your favorite news
sources or a list for a specific subject, such as blogging, social media, food,
music or tech. Information junkies are going to love this feature. You can also go local and follow your favorite restaurants, hangouts and local news sources.
You can only create 20 lists but that doesn't really matter because you can go and follow cool lists that other people have made. One of the best features of Twitter Lists is that you can add people to your lists that you are not following. You can add someone to one of your lists by using a tab that appears next to their profile. When you hover over the tab your Twitter Lists appear and you can check the box(es) next to the List you want to add them to.
The lists themselves are very useful. They contain all the tweets from the twitterers you have added to the list. The lists appear on the right side of your page underneath the search box. When you click on one of the lists the tweets from the members in the list show up on your homepage. Each list also has its own page.
Here's a short summary of some of the features:
You can make up to 20 lists.
Each list can have up to 500 twitterers.
Lists can be private or public.
You can add people to lists even if you don't follow them.
You can follow lists made by other people.
You can change the title of a list at any time.
The url path for lists is twitter.com/username/nameoflist
Twitter shows you who is following each list.
Twitter shows you how many lists you are listed on (next to your followers/following count)
I have made a bunch of lists already including one for Twitter apps and tools as well as lists for blogging, celebrities, tech, tv and movies, etc. I'm also following some lists others have made including a Metaverse list, iPhone list, nonprofits list and Australia list. I'm also following some company group lists, such as the Twitter list, TechCrunch list, Mashable list, ReadWriteWeb list - these lists contain Twitterers that all blog/work for the same company. You can see my lists and the lists I am following here.
Note: You can't see any of the lists if Twitter has not yet activitated Twitter Lists for your account. Hopefully, they will do this soon.
For those who have Twitter List Blindness here's an example of a Twitter list called "Tech"
Neatorama reports that Dan Ros hacked his Big Mouth Billy Bass so that it quotes Homer Simpson, Bill Clinton, George Bush and characters from Monty Python's The Holy Grail. The hacked Big Mouth Billy Bass will also speak whatever is tweeted at him. The Bass's brain was swapped with an mbed Microcontroller. Take a look:
What a great idea. It's important that we get as many Big Mouth Billy Bass units connected to Twitter as possible.
Drew Carey Promises $1 Million Charity Donation For 1 Million Twitter Followers
In an exclusive interview with CBSNews.com's Shira Lazar, The Price Is Right host Drew Carey says he will donate $1 million to charity if he gets a million twitter followers by 2010. Drew Carey is on Twitter at @DrewFromTV. He has about 50,000 subscribers so he probably is not on Twitter's SUL. Drew Carey says the charity is Livestrong. Take a look:
Twitter blogged yesterday that it will soon add a feature called Lists.
The lists could be a game changer and help end the comfy ride those on Twitter's Suggested Users List (SUL) have enjoyed for far too long. There will probably be attempts to game it and lots of "please add me to your list" tweets. There is some risk with this feature because if people can follow everyone on a list all at once then they are more likely to follow a list that includes a malware spammer. Twitter could also create a public database showing Twitter accounts that are included in the most lists. Twitter's API will probably allow developers to do something like this.
The following aspect is interesting but the real value in the lists is not so much in following but in allowing Twitter users to segment their Twitter followers, and allow them to track tweets by self-chosen categories such as news, business, family, friends, etc. The lists are public by default but there will likely be lots of private lists. Hopefully, Twitter never has an error that lets people see someone's private "Frenemies" list.
The lists should increase following on Twitter, which is one of the reasons Twitter created the SUL in the first place. Most Twitter users don't follow very many other people and these lists should help. If the Twitter Lists make it easy for people to track by groups or categories that help them then it may also increase the amount of time people spend on Twitter.
Here is another Twitter song called "Twitter Rock Stars." The song by Carina K (@carinak) was posted to YouTube a couple months ago. The song described as a "tongue-in-cheek, cheesy fun song" is definitely one of the better Twitter songs. You can see the seven or so other Twitter songs here.
Here's "Twitter Rock Stars" with vocals by Carina K and guitar by Richie Scheffer.
Mashable 
Jim Carrey's bizarre new 
