Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris
It's not stupid at all. The only statistically valid way to assess the entire contents of the twitter tweet stream is to randomly sample it.
And what exactly is the 'true' usage of Twitter? Obviously you think it's people like Stephen Fry and those who follow him, but how is that the 'true' usage if Fry's tweets and people's replies to them constitute only a tiny fraction of the whole?
The 'true' usage is the entirety of what it is used for, warts and all.
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It's like saying the Internet is mostly rubbish. While it may be technically true it is not a valid way of looking at it because the rubbish does not get attention while the good does.
The consistent twitter users usually following interesting people. I follow Stephen Fry, a few other celebrities whom I find interesting and a few famous/influential programmers who tweet relevant and interesting information.
I don't subscribe to Joe-whats-his-name who posts this daily activities for none to see. I would bet that few people subscribe to these tweets.700,000 people subscribe to Stephen Fry. No one follows random people posting random content.
Which is why the study is pointless, they should follow the content that is getting seen rather than randomly pick out content from anywhere.