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Monday, June 30, 2008

On Friends, Followers, and the Top Twitter Users

On Friends, Followers, and the Top Twitter Users: "

An easy way to increase Twitter's signal-to-noise ratio is to follow less people. I'm sure you've heard of Twitter users who follow several thousand twitterers. How they keep up with that many micro-blogs is beyond me. Unfortunately, spammers have discovered that to increase their 'following', they simply follow thousands of other users, a small percentage whom will politely start following them. Granted, number of followers is not as informative as the number of conversations a twitter user starts or posts that get retweeted, it is currently the only metric that is generally available.



The Twitterholic ranking does not appear to have been overrun by spammers, although some of the top users follow a shocking number of other users. According to Twitterholic, the top users averaged around 10,200 followers. Assuming that each of the top users follows a fraction (say 5%, or 1 in 20) of those following them, that translates to each of them following about 514 other twitterers. It turns out about half of the top twitterers follow a larger fraction than that. In the graph below, the green line represents 5% of the number of followers (friends-to-followers ratio equal to 5%). As per Twitterholic, I use the term friends to refer to the number of users a twitterer is following:

pathint

I highlighted the users who follow more than 15,000 other users, including one user ('ringernation') who follows more than 100,000 twitterers. 100K is about one-tenth of the twitter user base! Over the second half of June, ringernation increased his following by 61%, going from a friends-to-followers ratio of 3.8% to 6%.



Needless to say, when someone is following that many other users, chances are he is no longer paying close attention to what others are saying: just because Scoble is one of your 'followers' doesn't mean he is even speed reading what you're tweeting. As Tim observed a few weeks ago:



For example, among the top twitterers, it's pretty clear that many of them are simply following anyone who follows them, which drives their 'popularity.' But that makes clear that they aren't actually following any of those people -- the volume is just too great. So ironically, if you follow everyone, you follow no one. (Unless you 'friend' them, and only really follow your friends.)


So you can see that there are three categories of twitterers: those who use it for its original purpose, by following and being followed by a small group of friends; those who use it for marketing, by broadcasting to many but following none; and those who recognize the asymmetry, and are followed by many, but follow fewer.

Finally, in case your wondering, 42% of the top users follow more than 666 other twitterers.





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O'Reilly Radar - http://radar.oreilly.com/

Will Picasa become Google Photos?

Will Picasa become Google Photos?: "There are some signs that the company could be preparing to change the name of its photo-sharing Web site."


CNET News.com - http://www.news.com/

New requirements for Ore. driver's licenses go into effect Tuesday

New requirements for Ore. driver's licenses go into effect Tuesday: "Opponents of the documentation requirements say people who are poor, elderly or live in rural areas may have a tough time getting ID cards or driver's licenses. Nationally, about 11 million U.S. citizens lack birth certificates or passports."


KPIC - News - Local & Regional - http://www.kpic.com/news/local

Dalai Lama's time bomb

Dalai Lama's time bomb: "Some Tibetans have had it with the spiritual leader's nonviolence. But as Gandhi showed, patience can be the deadliest of weapons.

"


Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/

"Hancock"

"Hancock": "This story of a seriously flaked-out superhero shows us the limits of Will Smith's superpowers.

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Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/

If You Want Windows XP, Better Buy it Today

If You Want Windows XP, Better Buy it Today: "Microsoft, determined to push its Vista operating system over the objections of significant numbers of PC users, officially pulls the plug on its popular XP OS.

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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Umpqua Valley haze to linger

Umpqua Valley haze to linger: "Smoke from several major forest fires in Northern California continued to drift into the Umpqua Valley this morning, creating haze and limiting visibility to 10 miles."


News Review - News - http://www.nrtoday.com

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Good to the last drop

Good to the last drop: "What makes a perfect pot of joe? Is Fair Trade really fair? 'God in a Cup' author Michaele Weissman talks about the history, and our continuing love affair, with that divine drink -- coffee.

"


Salon - http://www.salon.com/?source=rss&aim=/

Apple iTunes Store’s ‘Complete My Album’ is a marketing tool

Apple iTunes Store’s ‘Complete My Album’ is a marketing tool: "In the past few months, labels and artists have begun releasing multiple tracks in advance of an album's..."


MacDailyNews - http://www.macdailynews.com/

Arts & Letters Daily (28 Jun 2008)

Arts & Letters Daily (28 Jun 2008): "

You say you know what you're doing. But what if your brain has made up its mind ten seconds before it tells you?... more


Man goes to the doctor and says, 'Doctor, my penis is burning.' Doctor explains, 'That means somebody is talking about your penis.' What is it about jokes? ... more ... more


Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky rattled the role of reason in the pantheon of human motives. For them, homo economicus was ironic, skeptical, almost wickedly complex... more

"


Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

St. Joe's School Band

St. Joe's School Band: "Drum section, me and Mary. That little smirk on my face means I'm probably thinking how cute Mary is. I thought that quite a lot in eighth grade.

Yesterday afternoon ten members of St. Joeseph's graduating class of 1968 met at the old school. Some of us hadn't seen each other in 36 years. We wandered through our old classrooms and remembered good times. We traded phone numbers and email "


Zeta Woof - http://grdurand.com/blogger/

Arts & Letters Daily (29 Jun 2008)

Arts & Letters Daily (29 Jun 2008): "

Tim Berners-Lee made the web because he had a poor memory for some things. John Naughton wonders if it won't give us all a poor memory... more


Man goes to the doctor and says, 'Doctor, my penis is burning.' Doctor explains, 'That means somebody is talking about your penis.' What is it about jokes? ... more ... more ... more


Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky rattled the role of reason in the pantheon of human motives. For them, homo economicus was ironic, skeptical, almost wickedly complex... more

"


Arts & Letters Daily - ideas, criticism, debate - http://aldaily.com/

Twitter's weakening pulse

Twitter's weakening pulse: "The digital natives who love Twitter are getting restless as company engineers try to save the patient from flatlining."


CNET News.com - http://www.news.com/

Viscosity 0.3 - Graphical user interface for OpenVPN. (Free)

Viscosity 0.3 - Graphical user interface for OpenVPN. (Free): "

Viscosity 0.3
Viscosity is a graphical user interface for OpenVPN, the excellent open-source VPN solution. Until now OpenVPN connections required familiarity with the command-line and Mac OS X's Unix underpinnings to be able to use on a Mac. Viscosity changes this by providing a rich Cocoa user-interface for controlling OpenVPN connections."


MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

SAGE 3.0.3 - Open source advanced mathematics software. (Free)

SAGE 3.0.3 - Open source advanced mathematics software. (Free): "

SAGE 3.0.3

SAGE: Open Source Mathematics Software... Creating a viable free open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and Matlab.


General and Advanced Pure and Applied Mathematics
Use SAGE for studying a huge range of mathematics, including algebra, calculus, elementary to very advanced number theory, cryptography, numerical computation, commutative algebra, group theory, combinatorics, graph theory, and exact linear algebra.


Use an Open Source Alternative
By using SAGE you help to support a viable open source alternative to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, and MATLAB. SAGE includes many high-quality open source math packages.


Use Most Mathematics Software from Within SAGE
SAGE makes it easy for you to use most mathematics software together. SAGE includes interfaces to Magma, Maple, Mathematica, MATLAB, and MuPAD, and the free programs Axiom, GAP, GP/PARI, Macaulay2, Maxima, Octave, and Singular.


Use a Standard Programming Language
You work with SAGE using the highly regarded scripting language Python instead of an obscure language designed for a particular mathematics program. You can write programs that combine serious mathematics with anything else.

"


MacUpdate - Universal Binary - http://www.macupdate.com/macintel.php

Scientists: Atom Smasher Won't Spawn Scary Black Holes

Scientists: Atom Smasher Won't Spawn Scary Black Holes: "The most powerful atom-smasher ever will make its debut in August, and experts say doomsday fears that the Large Hadron Collider could create black holes or killer particles are unfounded.

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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Secrets of 'Wanted''s Insane On-Screen Action

Secrets of 'Wanted''s Insane On-Screen Action: "When you've got high-priced talent like Angelina Jolie and James McAvoy on the payroll, nobody's going to risk the actors' lives or limbs for the sake of an awesome stunt. That said, superhero-assassin movie 'Wanted' pushed its stars pretty hard to sell the train wrecks and gunfights that drive the action. Here's how they did it.

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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

'Doctor Who' Cliffhanger Teases Endless Possibilities

'Doctor Who' Cliffhanger Teases Endless Possibilities: "If the cliffhanger of Saturday's episode of Doctor Who is legitimate and not some clever, alternative universe, time-traveling trick, Russell T. Davies and his Who crew pulled off one of the truly great swerves in television history.

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Wired News - http://www.wired.com/rss/index.xml

Some Proof That Marijuana Is a Powerful Medicine

Some Proof That Marijuana Is a Powerful Medicine: "Scientists prove that beta-caryophyllene, a chemical found in marijuana, soothes the immune system, increases bone mass, and blocks pain signals -- without causing euphoria or interfering with the central nervous system.

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