A Very Public Sociologist has completed a second annual survey of the number of Twitter followers of people who also write political blogs in the UK. I finished up 34th on this list last year, now I’m down to 61st. Other people who blog alongside their main non-media day job have dropped too – Tom Watson from 4th to 10th, Kerry McCarthy from 7th to 21st, Wardman Wire from 6th to 29th, Mark Pack from 32nd to 50th.

Alastair Campbell maintains top spot, but numbers 2-5 are all new entries, and they are all mainstream media journalists taking to Twitter – Jon Snow (36,962 followers)Johann Hari (33,656 followers)Krishnan Guru-Murthy (32,917 followers) and Nick Robinson (27,337 followers).

Am I remotely surprised? No. For it seems that Twitter is going the same way as blogging – it’s the new new mainstream.

Just as with blogging there was an early mover advantage, lasting a couple of years, so it was the case with Twitter, only the gap closed even more swiftly this time. I was one of the early adopters, everyone else has caught up and then surged ahead. Next year I probably won’t even make the top 100.

So where’s the next shiny new tech bandwaggon to jump on then?

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *