Obama among the world's most Twittered
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Pool photo from Getty Images
Lady Gaga ... Justin Bieber ... Britney Spears ... Barack Obama.
This quartet has two things in common: They are global celebrities, and they are the four most followed people on the Twitter social network (in that order; Obama finished fourth, edging out Ashton Kutcher and Kim Kardashian).
David Leonhardt, writing in The New York Times magazine, reports that Obama is only the seventh "most influential" Twitter-er, behind a comedian, an American football player, a British actor, a couple of television hosts and a rap singer/media celebrity.
Leonhardt cited an independent research firm called Twitalyzer, which came up with something called the Influence Index.
"It counts the number of times somebody's Twitter name is mentioned by other users (including retweets, which occur when one user rebroadcasts another's message)," writes Leonhardt. "The Influence Index doesn't merely measure who's talking on Twitter, but it also measures how much someone is affecting the conversation. Look below at how low Lady Gaga's influence score is, for example."
By this measure, the world's most influential Twitter-er is Rafinha Bastos, a comedian from Brazil. He is followed by football wide receiver Chad Ochocinco, talk show host Conan O'Brien, British comedian Stephen Fry, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest and rapper\actor Snoop Dogg.
Then comes the president of the United States.
Who, by the way, doesn't type out his own tweets. That's done by staffers, which we suspect is the case with most celebs.
Also from The Times:
Eric T. Peterson, the chief executive of Twitalyzer, points out that some of the most influential users also make a big effort to respond to much less famous people with personal messages. Kim Kardashian falls into this category. President Obama, as you may have guessed, does not.
See photos of: Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Conan O'Brien,Snoop Dogg, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian, Lady Gaga,Justin Bieber
