Interesting twitularity stats

Thanks to Shashi Tharoor's tweets, I came upon tweeple.in which has a ranking of Indian tweeters by popularity as measured by the number of followers. There are strange things to be discovered if you scan the top ten list (and doubtless stranger things if you go further).

For starters, the number one position goes to Padmasree Warrier, the CTO of Cisco, with close to 1.5 million followers. I'm sure she's a great CTO and Cisco is certainly a company to be reckoned with, but it is more a B2B company than the sort of company one would have thought the aam janata would be interested in and ditto for the role of CTO - not exactly one to set the heart thumping or the imagination whirring or the loins stirring. Either Ms Padmasree is a heck of a tweeter or I'm missing something in this tweeting business. I shall follow her tweets to find out more.

[Update: On closer inspection, she's listed as being in California, so I would think a fair chunk of her followers are the techies in the biz looking to see what Cisco is up to. Makes more sense.]

Number two on the list, and a mere 200k followers behind, Om Malik, a venture capitalist. Hello? Again, not exactly the kind of profession I would have thought would grab the masses.

Shashi Tharoor, writer, diplomat and politician, comes in at number three. I think he should be higher up, but this ranking is the first that makes sense. Politics is important business in India, so an interest in politicians is understandable. But he's the only politician in the top 20 (probably the only tweeting Indian politician, in fact). Speaks volumes for the accessibility of Indian politicians both to their fans and to technology.

Four, is Vir Sanghvi, journalist, political and social commentator, writer and five is Deepak Chopra, new age Guru and writer - makes sense. One can fathom their popularity.

Six, yes, outside the top five, six is where we find our first film star and she is not Amitabh or Shahrukh or Aamir, but the delightfully nicknamed Piggy Chops - Priyanka Chopra. So much to wonder about here. No film star in the top five. Priyanka more popular than Shahrukh. An actress more popular than the actors.

Shahrukh Khan or Shah Rukh Khan, as he's listed himself, comes in a good three spots down at number nine, barely squeezing into the top ten, beaten by a marketing consultant (patently good at marketing himself) and a web techie.

Ten is the redoubtable Karan Johar, who restores the film profession's standing by enabling them to grab 30% of the top ten. There are four more film stars in the top 20, giving them a 35% ranking share. More in tune with one's perceptions of the importance of film stars to the average Indian's life.

Barkha Dutt and Chetan Bhagat are the only non-filmi names I recognise in the top 20.

Surprising omission: No cricketer or cricket commentator. C'mon guys, whatever happened to 'cricket as religion'? Not techno-literate enough, are we?

Interesting aside on self-descriptions: Priyanka describes herself as 'Da Real Deal' in block capitals, no less. Shahid Kapoor feels the need to describe himself as 'Actor - Indian Film Industry' and Sonam Kapoor as 'a female actor'. Gul Panag is an 'actor' among other things. Whatever happened to the word 'actress'? No longer politically correct, I guess. What a shame we forsake precision for politics.

Deepak Chopra, Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar feel no need to describe themselves. Their names speak for themselves. Way to go, guys!

And I just love Shah Rukh's handle - iamsrk. Say no more.

Aside on 'twitularity': I thought I had serendipitously coined this word, but mistrusting my genius (rightfully so), I Googled 'twitularity' and found it's been used to denote a 'new humanity' as in singularity, twitularity and as shorthand for 'twitter popularity' which is my use of the word.

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