Here’s a comparison we never thought we’d make: the Pope is proving to be more Twitter-popular than pop culture tween icon Justin Bieber.
In his first full week on Twitter, Pope Benedict XVI is already scoring impressive stats.
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Justin Bieber is the second most-popular user on Twitter with over 11.5 million followers – only Lady Gaga has more – and pretty much everything he tweets is guaranteed to receive hundreds and hundreds of retweets and replies.
In fact, he’s arguably got the most obsessed following on all of Twitter. But how does that stack up to ticket sales for Bieber’s gigs?
Twitter has made some long overdue changes to the algorithm for its trending topics feature, adjusting the focus to breaking news and immediacy, as opposed to things that are always trending.
The new algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the ‘most breaking’ breaking news from across the world. (We had previously built in this ‘emergent’ algorithm for all local trends, described below.) We think that trending topics which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting.
The good news? This should mean the end of Justin Bieber, although I’ll believe it when I see it. But looking at global trending topics right now, his name isn’t in the top ten, possibly for the first time in, oh, ten to fifteen millennia.
Bieber – and his fans – are a little upset, and he’s even taken to contacting Twitter directly, who have responded.
Could it really be true? Could the Bieber be vanquished for good? Don’t count on it – “Jieber” is trending as we speak. Clearly, the rabid insanity of teeny boppers will not be quelled so lightly.
(Hat tip to Mashable.)
In February, I wrote about the eternal presence of Justin Bieber on Twitter’s global trending topics. In the past couple of months, I’m not sure I’ve seen Bieber leave this list – he’s trending in the top ten as we speak – which once again underlines my point about the general redundancy of this feature.
Yes, Twitter has now given us the facility to set the trending topics geographically. Typically, this leads to further, albeit localised redundancy, and it also means that you’re a step or two behind when the (genuinely important) global news breaks. Â And being completely honest, I don’t care how localised trending topics becomes – apart from a very casual interest, I’m never going to be that concerned about what’s buzzing in my home town, because nothing is ever buzzing in my home town. If you live in New York, you probably feel differently.
However, and whether you like it or not, Bieber is a big deal. Huge, in fact. How big? Well, according to Google Trends, he’s now bigger than Lady Gaga.
Perhaps more impressively, especially with his strong Easter showing, even Jesus couldn’t bring the Bieber down.
But here’s the thing: none of these individuals are important to me. I don’t want to see any of them in MY trending topics. Yes, it’s all about me, but it’s all about you, too. This is our experience. Not Twitter’s, and not the collective’s.
All I want are two simple things:
And if Twitter can’t or won’t do this, maybe a developer will.
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