China’s Social Network Personalities

The Social Media team for Ogilvy Beijing created this great graphic to explain the personality differences between social networks in China. Unlike other parts of the world, where Facebook or other social networks dominate, Chinese users tend to join with their peers from a similar background.

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When your Relationship Will End

Have you ever wondered when people break up? Look at the graph below.

I watched a TED talk the other day from David McCandless called “The beauty of data visualizations“. It was quite amazing and included lots of different datasets. One of them was about Facebook and breakups. David and his team scanned over 10 000 status-updates and set out to learn more about when people broke up. This is what they learned:

• A big peak right before Spring Break
• Most breakups are announced on Mondays
• People like to start the summer being single
• A big peak right before Christmas
• The lowest day throughout the whole year is Christmas Day (thank God)

I never stop being amazed about how much Facebook can actually teach us about human behavior. When everything is being digitalized and searchable, some really interesting stuff appears

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How are Mobile Phones Changing Social Media?

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Social Networking Habits Vary Considerably Across Asia-Pacific Markets

Philippines Exhibits Highest Social Networking Engagement 

Facebook Competes with Local Brands for Title of Top Social Network
Singapore, April 7, 2010– comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its latest report on social networking activity in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding China) based on data from its World Metrix service. The study found that 50.8 percent of the total online population in the Asia-Pacific region visited a social networking site in February 2010, reaching a total of 240.3 million visitors. Facebook.com ranked as the top social network across the majority of individual markets in the region, while competing brands commanded the top position in certain markets, including Orkut in India, Mixi.jp in Japan, CyWorld in South Korea and Wretch.cc in Taiwan.
“While social networking continues to be one of the most popular and fastest growing Web activities in the world, its dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region exhibit significantly more individual market differentiation than in other global regions,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for Asia Pacific. “In some markets, such as the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia, social networking is one of the most popular Web activities reaching nearly 90 percent of the entire Internet population, while other markets report less PC-based social networking penetration, which can often be attributed to the high propensity to engage in social networking via mobile devices in these markets.”
Social Networking Penetration Highest in Philippines, Australia and Indonesia
In February 2010, Internet users in the Asia-Pacific region averaged 2.5 hours on social networking sites during the month and visited the category an average of 15 times. Across markets, the Philippines showed the highest penetration of social networking usage with more than 90 percent of its entire Web population visiting a social networking site during the month, followed by Australia (89.6 percent penetration) and Indonesia (88.6 percent penetration).
Social networkers in the Philippines also showed the highest level of engagement on social networking sites averaging 5.5 hours per visitor in February, with visitors frequenting the social networking category an average of 26 times during the month. Strong engagement was also exhibited by Internet users in Indonesia (5.4 hours per visitor and 22 visits per visitor), Australia (3.8 hours per visitor and 20 visits per visitor) and Malaysia (nearly 3.8 hours per visitor and 22 visits per visitor).

Social Networking Reach and Engagement in Asia Pacific Markets February 2010 Total Internet Audience*, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore World Metrix
	Social Networking
	% Reach	Average Minutes per Visitor	Average Visits per Visitor
Asia Pacific	50.8	148.9	15.1
Philippines	90.3	332.2	26.3
Australia	89.6	228.0	20.9
Indonesia	88.6	324.4	22.6
Malaysia	84.7	226.0	22.3
Singapore	83.7	220.9	22.1
New Zealand	81.2	217.5	20.3
Taiwan	75.9	131.3	18.3
Hong Kong	75.4	223.3	25.4
India	68.5	130.1	13.0
South Korea	63.5	131.4	16.0
Vietnam	46.1	49.5	7.2
Japan	42.3	120.5	14.0

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Facebook Assumes Top Position in Majority of Asia Pacific Markets
An analysis of top social networks in each of the Asia-Pacific markets included in this report revealed various brand preferences across markets. Facebook.com was the social networking leader in eight of the markets – Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam – while in other countries competing brands captured the top position. Local players led in Japan (Mixi.jp) and South Korea (CyWorld), while Google-owned Orkut ranked as the top social networking site in India and Yahoo!’s Wretch.cc led in Taiwan.

Top Social Network in Individual Asia Pacific Markets by Percent Reach of Web Population February 2010 Total Internet Audience*, Age 15+ - Home & Work Locations Source: comScore World Metrix
	Top Social Network in Market	% Reach of Web Population
Asia Pacific	Facebook.com	14.9%
Philippines	Facebook.com	84.5%
Australia	Facebook.com	69.4%
Indonesia	Facebook.com	84.9%
Malaysia	Facebook.com	77.5%
Singapore	Facebook.com	72.1%
New Zealand	Facebook.com	63.6%
Taiwan	Wretch.cc	62.5%
Hong Kong	Facebook.com	62.6%
India	Orkut	46.8%
South Korea	CyWorld	54.2%
Vietnam	Facebook.com	18.4%
Japan	Mixi.jp	18.9%

*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

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Generation Y says “Yes” to the convergence of email and social media

Due to the growth of social networking and micro-blogging sites the survival of e-mail marketing has been questioned for quite a few times in the past year. 

The recent researches by eMarketer and StrongMail once again prove that there is nothing to be afraid for e-mail marketers.

The reports also provide some interesting insights about Millennials’ and how they adapt to the changing media environment and their relationship with social media and e-mail marketing.

Marketers sometimes wrongly assume that the new generation is just all about new technologies, tools and channels when targeting Digital natives.

As you can see from the table below, Generation Y is not that different from others, but due to the natural multitasking skill they just embrace more means of communications than the generations before. 

It actually reminds me about this great talk by the youngest TED speaker Adora Svitak who suggests that every new generation always has to do more in order to keep the progress in pace.

Another table from this report related to Millennials is a bit ambiguous. There are too possible assumptions:
•    Just 35 % of Millennials use e-mail to share info about the brands.
•    Just 15 % of Generation X use social networking to share info about the brands.

I would stick with the second one (37 % vs. 15 % ) which actually confirms the earlier proposition about Millennials and rises a new issue –  possibly the bigger problem is not the “Generation Y” rejecting the old media channels, but the “Generation X”  not willing to adapt to the new ones.

Therefore marketers have to think how to make new platforms more accessible for both generations and provide a greater experience by merging them together.

According to the StrongMail blog post, with the recent announcements from top social brands who are already doing it (Google Buzz) or are set to do it (Facebook e-mail service) creating an integrated social media and e-mail marketing strategy gains even bigger importance.

eMarketer came up with brilliant tips how to maximize the connection between social media and e-mail:

1.     Multiply the sharing opportunities.
2.     Provide a broader platform for advocates.
3.     Shift the control to your consumers.
4.     Use e-mail metrics to enhance social ROI.
So keeping in mind the Millennials, I would add one more bullet point to this list

•    Provide the right form of the content.

Before finishing the post I just accidently stumbled upon this video by iJustine, where hundreds of teenagers go crazy at a Justin Bieber concert, screaming and filming themselves all along.

It can be noticed, that not only the distribution channel but the nature of the content is vital for Millennials and in the future it’s clearly all about video.
Giedrius Ivanauskas, the researcher of Social Media and Augmented reality, is a social media marketing expert that really gets the point. He blogs on Social Media Today and on his own blog Social Media Citizens (that you can follow on Facebook here). Giedrius is also an administrator of the Social Marketing Forum and its Facebook Page. You can follow Giedrius via Twitter here.

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The Democrats Are Doomed, or How A ‘Big Tent’ Can Be Too Big

March 30th, 2010 by Christian

Time and again in American politics, Republicans have voted as a unit to frustrate our disorganized Democratic majority. No matter what's on the table, a few Democrats will peel away from the party core; meanwhile, all Republicans will somehow manage to stay on-message.
Thus, they caucus block us.

. . .

Articles noting this phenomenon anecdotally appear all the time, and despite the recent hopeful spate of Democratic victories, the fact that Republicans form an exceptionally effective opposition party is undeniable. Today, we're going to perform a data-driven investigation of this—and discover some fascinating things about the American electorate along the way. Our data set for this post is 172,853 people.

A Picture Of Our Political Evolution

I should start off by pointing out that the Left/Right political framework we're usually handed is insufficient for a real discussion, because political identity isn't one-dimensional. For example, many Libertarians have Left-leaning ideas about social policy, and Right-leaning ideas about personal property. Where do they fit on a single ideological line?
There are many methods of looking at the political spectrum, but the best way I've come across is to hold social politics and economic politics separate, and measure a person's views on each in terms of permissiveness vs. restrictiveness on a 2-dimensional plane. Like so:
As you can see, I've superimposed some 'party' labels, to add some real-world context. One could quibble with the names I've chosen, but I feel that, in a broad sense, they fit: Democrats have a permissive social outlook and believe in restricting the financial sector (through regulation); Republicans essentially believe the reverse. In their corner, Libertarians would like to end restrictions across the board, and, down in the lower right, we have people who prefer that all aspects of life be guided by some authority: religion, the government, whatever.

. . .

Now, with the definitions out of the way, we can get to some information. We'll begin with the most basic measurement: people's economic and social values. Because our data set is so comprehensive, we can even measure the change in these values with age.

Politics is a big part of dating, and we've gleaned this post's data from OkCupid's question database. Our sample size today is 172,860 people.

These lines contain a neat little story:

• Both socially and economically, teenagers prefer an anything-goes type situation.
• But as these teenagers grow up a bit and enter the job market, they quickly develop progressive economic ideas: perhaps a bit of "levelling" seems pretty good when you're staring up the professional ladder from the bottom rung. Meanwhile, their youthful live-and-let-live social philosophy begins to fade.
• In their late 20s, they start making real money. Economic progressivism goes out the window, preferably out the window of a building with a doorman. As the adult mind turns to more material matters, social views don't change that much.
• Finally, after the mid-40s, retirement looms. Our former teenagers check their collective 401(k)s and think, you know what, let's all get checks from the government. Social views take a hard turn for the more restrictive. At the end of the journey, economic and social views are again in agreement—only this time on the other side of the philosophical line!

Anyhow, these numbers really come alive when we take the next intellectual step and plot social and economic beliefs together as an ordered pair. So doing, we can get a picture of how the the average total political outlook evolves over time.
Now, with this picture in hand, we can go a step further with our data. The American two-party system creates an interesting mathematical situation: we can bisect our political planea two-party system allows us to bisect the political plane and see which party more closely reflects a given age group's ideology simply by asking which side of the line the group lands on. People sitting in the upper right half should vote, in theory, for Democrats. People in the lower left, for Republicans. Like so:

The Implication of Our Two-Party System

But of course this line assumes that social and economic values are equally important to a person and that his or her priorities don't change as time goes by. Obviously, neither is the case in the real world. So let's see exactly how those values change and do even more with our graph.
Digging deeper into OkCupid's matching database, we find the following new information on people's political priorities:
The way this data bears on our political plane is mathematically cool, but arctan(x) really has no place in a political discussion (except in Flatland!), so I'll just summarize bya change in political priorities causes our
dividing line to rotate saying a shift towards either social or economic issues causes our Democrat/Republican dividing line to rotate about the center of our political plane. Here's exactly how it happens; this timeline is basically the sum of all the information we have shown so far. Use the slider to step through time.

The Effects Of Changing Political Priorities

age

From this animation, we can consolidate all that we've learned about each group into a single plot. The blue dots are the ages likely to vote Democratic, the red are the Republican ones. In case you're keeping score, there are 21 blue dots and 22 red ones.

People's Ultimate Political Tendencies

This detailed portrait of the electorate jives well with the actual exit poll numbers from the last few Presidential elections. The New York Times has collected this data and present it very well, if you have time to take a look. Here's the part that concerns us:
To wind up this section, I'd like to take one last look at our political plane, with a final set of overlays that I think are most illuminating:
The polygons I've drawn over the dots are called convex hulls; they are a geometric way to measure the spread of a set of points. In this case, the hulls tell us the size of the ideological/age base of our political party.
As you can see, the Democrat's base is much larger. And the range of political values it encompasses is vast. Here's party-to-party comparison in tablet form, for easy digestion:
Unlike in many things, size here is a liability. Yes, a political party that's this wide-open is probably a more intellectually stimulating organizationideological size is a liability to be a part of, and it has a lot more potential power. But bigger base is also just that many more competing viewpoints Democratic politicians must cater to and that many more different viewpoints in play among the actual elected officials themselves.
Also, well over half of the Democratic party's hull lies outside of its upper-right-hand ideological home, implying that you've got many groups of people who might tend Democratic, but who have disagreements with the party on particular issues and could defect, should the slant of the party or the country tilt the wrong way. On the other hand, the Republicans are concentrated in the lower-left-hand corner. This red cluster has multiple, apparently self-reinforcing, reasons to vote with their party, giving the Republicans both a more fervent power base and a little more ideological wiggle-room along either the social or economic axis.
So when you read about the thousands of Catholic nuns who recently came out in favor of health care reform, it's easy to get excited about being a Democrat. But do you think those same people will side with us on things like gay marriage? Or abortion rights? Hull no!

. . .

That's the crux of the problem: Republicans cohere, Democrats don't. After the above mathematical dissection of the political plane, let's take our conclusion in hand and see how it plays with other dating data we have.

Issues, Matching, and Politics

This whole Republican/Democrat situation reminds me (as it surely reminds you) I think of Mamluks sometimesof when Napoleon and his few French divisions dispersed the vast Mamluk horde by the banks of the Nile. Like an army, a political party must be coherent and disciplined to be effective, and these qualities alone can carry the day, even against greater numbers.
Let's look at ideological distributions on a few hot-button issues and see how the Democrats are spread out and exposed. We'll start with views on abortion. This chart shows the opinions of social conservatives and social liberals. Everything is as you'd expect: liberals are pro-choice; conservatives pro-life.
Now let's look at how economic liberals and conservatives view abortion:
Again, the conservatives are strongly pro-life. But the economic liberals have widely distributed views. A solid portion of the Democratic economic base actually sides with Republicans on this issue. It's those nuns again!
While the two conservative curves are nearly congruent, the liberals ones are totally different. The takeaway, the Republican advantage, is this: economic conservatives and social conservatives agree, while the liberal halves of these spectra don't. Furthermore, the purple overlap—in a sense "the swing vote"—is largely on the conservative side!
We see same pattern repeated again and again. Here, for example, is a look at the 'Gay Marriage' issue:

. . .

Finally, I want to wrap up this burrito with a look at OkCupid's specialty: matching people up.
Below are two matrices, showing person-to-person match percentages. These numbers are a measure of how well two people get along. We've used them to facilitate over 100,000 marriages in the last few years; their accuracy is well-tested. Match percentages range from 100 (awesome) to 0 (terrible), and the site average is 61.
We excluded explicitly political questions, ran numbers for the different ideologies, and found these patterns, which I'll leave you with:
As you can see, conservatives of both stripes get along with each other better than liberals do with themselves, even on non-political issues. We calculate match percentage by posing a series of questions to our users. Just to give you a sense of what these questions are like, here are the top three most important (by user vote):

1. If you had to name your greatest motivation in life so far, what would it be?

• Love
• Wealth
• Expression
• Knowledge

2. Which makes for a better relationship?

• Passion
• Dedication

3. Are you happy with your life?

• Yes
• No

I find groupthink frightening. But that fact that Democrats can't get together on some multiple-choice Q & A, speaks volumes about why they struggle with the infinite possibilities of government.

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Gen Ys most loyal shoppers to Appliances and Electronics sites

Posted by Sandra Hanchard  March 22, 2010

Earlier this month, Commonwealth Bank in conjunction with the University of Canberra launched Viewpoint - a report on the economic vitality of Australia. The report found that Gen Ys' spending habits were surprisingly resilient to the Global Financial Crisis - “Gen Y’s spending increased 6.2 per cent in 2009, despite earnings growing only 2.5 per cent and job losses in the age group rising 13.6 per cent.”

This insight corresponds broadly to a finding from our recent study on the “New vs. Returning” visitors to Shopping and Classifieds – Appliances and Electronics websites in the lead up to Christmas last year. Interestingly, 18-24 year olds were 44% more likely than the online average to be returning visitors to Appliances and Electronics websites in November 2009. Even though Gen Ys were amongst the hardest hit group by economic pressures, they were still the most engaged online researchers in one of the most popular online retail categories last year.

In comparison, users over 55 were the least likely to return to Appliances and Electronics websites. Given that 55+ users have high purchasing power, and are becoming a larger segment with Australia’s ageing population, retailers should be stepping up their efforts to market to this group and create compelling content that invites repeat visits.

We also looked at the broader Lifestyle Mosaic Groups and found that “Learners and Earners (students) and “Pushing the Boundaries” (young families) were the two household groups most likely to have repeat visits to Appliances and Electronics sites in November 2009. The strength of repeat visits by young families, in addition to students, suggests that households with tight disposable incomes may also be engaging in higher than usual comparison shopping activity.

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Facebook Is for Friends, Blogging Is for Benjamins

Posted by Jeanne Hopkins on Wed, Mar 17, 2010 @ 05:14 PM


The economic challenges of 2009 had more small businesses looking for less-expensive marketing tactics, especially social media channels. In fact, social media usage among small businesses doubled from 12% in 2008 to 24% in 2009, according to "The State of Small Business Report" from Network Solutions Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business.
The method of choice for 75% of the small businesses surveyed was a company page on Facebook or LinkedIn, followed closely by posting status updates and articles of interests to sites like Facebook or LinkedIn (69%).  Additionally, 57% use social network sites to build their networks, and 54% use them to monitor feedback about their organizations.
Those large numbers make sense, as an ever-increasing number of people use such social network sites. Facebook says it has more than 400 million active users, with 50% of active users logging on every day; LinkedIn has more than 50 million members worldwide; and Twitter has about 75 million members. You want to go where the people are, and people are on social networks.
Where small businesses are missing out, however, is in creating their own content and sharing their expertise. Only 39% publish a blog about their area of expertise, and only 26% tweet about their area of expertise. When you produce quality content about your area of expertise (blog articles, tweets, etc.) you not only improve your chances of appearing in search engine results, but you also build your brand and your heighten your level of trust. You become an expert in your industry and a name people know and believe in when it comes time to buy.
Yes, it takes time to use social media effectively, but the benefits are worth it. Look at international law firm Harris and Moure, which used its blog to bring in "seven figures worth of work," and software solutions company Lumension, which created an ebook to differentiate itself from competitors and saw the book get downloaded more than 7,000 times.
So, how are you using social media to market your firm?

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Tweeting to Women? Try Entertainment. Tweeting to Men? Try Opinion.

Posted by Rick Burnes on Tue, Mar 16, 2010 @ 03:55 PM

If you're a successful inbound marketer, you know how generate leads online: Create content that interests and attracts your ideal customers.
If you're selling golf lessons, blog articles and videos filled with golf tips will pull potential customers into your website. The more content you create, the more people you attract; the more targeted that content is, the more the people you attract will turn into customers.
But here's a question: Once you get beyond industry-level targeting (golf content for golf academies), how do you fine-tune your targeting?
Turns out there are a lot of things you can do, particularly when it comes to Twitter. For example, research by HubSpotter Dan Zarrella shows that there is a significant difference between the type of content that woman and men share on Twitter.

If you're targeting a female audience, your content will spread more quickly if it's related to entertainment, products or instructional material. If you're targeting males, your content will do better with opinion.
Dan's research shows that a series of other factors -- time of day, number of retweets, content type and punctuation -- all have relationships with retweeting patterns. (If you're interested in retweets, Dan will be hosting a webinar on the topic this Friday.) For marketers on Twitter, an understanding of these patterns can accelerate the spread of your content across the web.
Your customers aren't on Twitter?
Fine, but there's no question your customers are online, sharing information on some sort of social network.  As a marketer, you need to optimize your content for broadest possible distribution on social channels, regardless of the platforms you're using. Whatever network that is, you can learn from the basic lessons of sharing content on Twitter.

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140 Reasons We Love Twitter

About 1 day ago Samuel Axon
 
Today is Twitter’s fourth birthday, and to celebrate the occasion we asked our Twitter followers: “Let us know how Twitter changed your life – add hashtag #thankstwitter4 so we can find your tweet.”
We got thousands of responses — in fact, #thankstwitter4 has become a trending topic. As promised, we did our best to sift through the tweets and find 140 that represent the Twitter () zeitgeist as we enter the social network’s fourth year. Below are our selections, split up into categories or sentiments that we noticed were particularly common.
Consider this Twitter’s birthday picture at age four. Is it cute or is it ugly? You decide!
- Finding Love
- Finding Fame
- Staying Up to Date With Current Events
- Stalking Justin Bieber
- Stalking Celebrities in General
- Making Friends Around the World
- Making Friends With Similar Interests
- Being Better Than Facebook or MySpace
- Decreasing Performance at School
- Tweeting on the Go
- Miscellaneous

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Finding Love

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@lipssealed: “#thankstwitter4 the opportunity to get to know My Girlfriend @missmya”
@toddbrunner: “Met @SoniaDiamond, the love of my life, on Twitter 7 months ago. Happy birthday Twitter! Hope you’re as happy as we are. #thankstwitter4″
@fallwall: “#thankstwitter4 being a good listener and perfect boyfriend substitute now and again…”
@KevinBarclay: “Thanks Twitter, I found my girlfriend via yourself! #thankstwitter4″
@MrBuxton: “#thankstwitter4 my beautiful girlfriend @Miss_Kitkat whom I met through twitter & consider my other half now & always x”
@msfang: “#ThanksTwitter4 having sum super sexy men on my timeline causing me to get distracted…”
@DestinyBPR: “#thankstwitter4 helping me find my true love”
@Thick_Maddam: “#thankstwitter4 being eharmony and allowing me and my boyfriend @freakzilla718 to meet lol”
@freakzilla718: “RT @Thick_Maddam: #thankstwitter4 being eharmony and allowing me and my boyfriend @freakzilla718 to meet lol <==== awwwwww"
@1dondotta: "#thankstwitter4 helpin me lose my #Virginity"

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Finding Fame

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@itzTEEbaby: “#thankstwitter4 showing me that regular people are funnier than actual comedians s m f h !”
@MindthatMatters: “#thankstwitter4 letting average people some how become internet famous”
@Terry_McFly: “#thankstwitter4 makin me semi famous lol”
@yungdeeze1v: “#thankstwitter4 Gettin Me A Lil More Famous”
@DutchMasterTrav: “#ThanksTwitter4 makin ppl feel like the famous!”
@BreetheLeader: “#thankstwitter4 giving people another reason to think they’re famous -.-”
@elleybonbon: “#thankstwitter4 allowing people think they famous cuz they got a few followers #sityourassdown”
@butterflyy18: “#thankstwitter4 making me feeli like a celebrity in my own little world…”
@NlGGATENDO: “#ThanksTwitter4 Pumping peoples heads up with the “Follow,” feature.. People really think they’re famous now.”
@ShawnYoJunior: “#thankstwitter4 Pumping peoples Egos up making them think they’re famous on the Internet smh”

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Staying Up to Date With Current Events

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@Mixxy_D: “#ThanksTwitter4 finding out current events before the news does.”
@megalimantara: “#thankstwitter4 being the ultimate source of info”
@eternalcanadian: “Twitter enabled me to witness the 2010 #olympics & #paralympics from tweeter povs & informed me of realtime changes. #thankstwitter4″
@@levaimolnet: “Twitter killed my RSS feeds… #thankstwitter4″
@hlporter: “#thankstwitter4 keeping me in the loop on everything from solar panels to Dolly Parton. Couldn’t do it without you!”
@chinabrown01: “#thankstwitter4 being my news source!”
@MrAnthonyK: “#thankstwitter4 preventing me from having to watch the news all day”
@ItsMeeHelen: “#thankstwitter4 letting me know what the world is talking about–the TT is how i learn the news in the morning. =D”
@cindygallop1: “#thankstwitter4 becoming my first morning stop for news ahead of the papers”
@cayas: “#thankstwitter4 concise headlines ensuring very quick overview of “news” + intro 2 great sources of knowledge + makes me feel connected”
@ChristinaNancy: “#thankstwitter4 giving me the scoop on current events. I barely have time to watch the news. Its all right here.”
@EllennBabyy: “#ThanksTwitter4 keeping me up to date on current issues, you know i don’t watch the news”
@stevec3412: “#thankstwitter4 changing the definition of “real-time” news”
@TerisaSmurf: “#ThanksTwitter4 updating me on news faster than CNN sometimes. makes me feel smarter than the #fb people! lol”
@BenWinslow: “@mashable #thankstwitter4 letting me, as a news reporter, break news faster than I can get on TV and faster than the wires.”
@MJ62: “#thankstwitter4 being my number 1 news source. trending topics lets me always know what big is going on. and for sports I’m always filled in”
@technolliegy: “#thankstwitter4 keeping me in the know for music, and big headline news.”
@blackwje: “#thankstwitter4 helping me see daily news as interactive.”
@MatthewRussell9: “#thankstwitter4 giving me the latest news. Without you, I would never know what the heck’s going on in this world!”
@MissBreezyBoo: “#ThanksTwitter4 always keeping me updated with all the latest NEWS ()/GOSSIP”

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Stalking Justin Bieber

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@creatievzyn: “#thankstwitter4 giving all the Justin Bieber fans a place to hang out so that they don’t bother people irl.”
@Asiyo: “#thankstwitter4 for making me hate Justin Bieber.”
@jacksxjb: “#thankstwitter4 helping create an ongoing battle between justin bieber & jonas brothers fans.”
@jbiebslove: “#thankstwitter4 letting justin bieber have a way to contact his fans & for letting me get to meet these amazing beliebers around the world”
@JDBsWorld2: “#thankstwitter4 making it easy to creep on Justin Bieber. haha.”
@tanii_22: “#ThanksTwitter4 making me love justin bieber more and now i know all i need to know about him. ”
@ImaBeleeber: “#thankstwitter4 letting me feel that much closer to justin bieber <3"
@megannO_O: "#thankstwitter4 making me see how big headed justin bieber is "
@CamiDanae: "#thankstwitter4 having justin bieber trend every single day(:"
@eriktastic: "#thankstwitter4 ranking justin bieber above health care reform. way to go america."

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Stalking Celebrities in General

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@LysaSole: “#ThanksTwitter4 showing us the real personalities of some celebs. Some are such cornballs”
@brandamc: “#ThanksTwitter4 Letting me reply to celebs, dope rappers/MC’s, and music producers/DJ’s.”
@deehumes_hoang: “#ThanksTwitter4 giving me the chance to actually have contact with celebs i love, its amazing that they know i exist now;-)”
@dead_earthworm: “#ThanksTwitter4 helping people realise that celebs are just people too and not demi-gods!”
@iSally21: “#thankstwitter4 making it feel like the celebrities that I follow are my best friends. ”
@TiaJD3: “#ThanksTwitter4 making it clear that celebs are just as bored as we are!”
@hypnoticflow: “#thankstwitter4 opening my eyes to which celebrities are conceited, wack, or just plain boring”
@beeetthh: “#thankstwitter4 letting celebrities keep more in touch with their fans.”
@zuleyKOL: “#thankstwitter4 keeping me updated on Celebs like Lady Gaga < my FIRST follower "
@Laurensariah: "#thankstwitter4 making stalking celebrities seem perfectly acceptable."

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Making Friends Around the World

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@LadyJE: “#thankstwitter4 making it possible to share the joy of a flower blooming w someone on the otherside of the world who loves flowers too”
@rebeccawoodhead: “#thankstwitter4 letting me speak to people all over the world, build a readership for my books and win awards – even while housebound.”
@coffeelove: “Twitter gave me friends in other countries. #thankstwitter4″
@SaiSai3000: “#thankstwitter4 letting me share my thoughts with people from all over the place”
@trekladykim: “Want to #thankstwitter4 making it possible for me to be able to talk to intelligent, witty, and interesting people from all over the world.”
@kila0813: “#thankstwitter4 all myy new friends around the world”
@MRSJOYLOVE: “#thankstwitter4 allowing me to meet and socialize with people from all over the world, I love my Twitfam!!!”
@dangerjaneyXO: “#thankstwitter4 being awesome and connecting me to awesome people around the world. <3"
@RachelLazara: "#thankstwitter4 connecting me with amazing ppl all over the world <3"
@daanbrg: "#thankstwitter4 connecting me to the world like never before, meeting new people from all over the globe. Meeting new friends."

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Making Friends With Similar Interests

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@EdelweissNYC: “#thankstwitter4 Streaming my fashion fix everyday”
@BabsUvulaSybz: “#thankstwitter4 letting me meet many more Green Day obsessed lovely people ”
@vpspears92: “#thankstwitter4 let me know a lot of Britney Spears and Adam Lambert fans ”
@_Kaitie_: “Happy birthday @Twitter! #Thankstwitter4 connecting me with awesome #LOST-ies!”
@ColleenAnne29 “#thankstwitter4 putting me in touch with lots of other twin moms!”
@BeautyMarxs “#thankstwitter4 providing me with a group of people who like the same tv shows/movies I do and they don’t mind discussing them.”
@LadyJE “#thankstwitter4 making it possible 4 me to connect w people who love #shakespeare #theatre #film #poetry in ways not possible til @twitter”
@so_tweet: “#thankstwitter4 helping me reach people who have #trigeminal neuralgia and other types of pain.”
@ErinCerulean: #thankstwitter4 Twitter allows me to keep contact with a support network of librarians and people interested in new media.
@rudiboy86: “#thankstwitter4 allowing me to meet the best Rihanna fans around the world!”

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Being Better Than Facebook or MySpace

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@phresh614: “#thankstwitter4 giving me an escape from facebook and all its club promotions”
@xXshockhoundXx: “#thankstwitter4 bein simple and less cluttered than facebook and myspace. Happy birthday ”
@GDJRamaine: “#Thankstwitter4 making myspace be non existent..”
@OkiiMedia: “#thankstwitter4 making the amount of friends I had on Myspace () become irrelevant.”
@andronika2989: “#thankstwitter4 Gettin me off of Facebook () lol…, damn Farmville”
@CeeDana: “#thankstwitter4 causing the death of myspace… now, what will be the cause of your death???”
@ChamiiMamii: “#Thankstwitter4 entertaining me more than facebook”
@yasminmarie_x: “#thankstwitter4 not having as many users as facebook.”
@MissMarbina: “#Thankstwitter4 making me bored of facebook, I officially hate it now.”
@stuckxfixated: “#thankstwitter4 being my favorite social networking site.”

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Decreasing Performance at School

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@ToshaPaton: “#thankstwitter4 lowering my grade in every class…when i close my eyes i see that damn bird ”
@Ashl3yFaith: “#thankstwitter4 giving me a reason not to do my homework and bring down my grades”
@hannahbrazier: “#thankstwitter4 stopping me doing any kind of homework”
@m4rgaux: “#thankstwitter4 preventing me from doing my Homework ”
@emmabreckon: “#thankstwitter4 distracting me from my homework every night ”
@MechanicalSTEEZ: “#ThanksTwitter4 distracting me when I have homework, etc. to do. Haha. THANKS!”
@Steph843: “#thankstwitter4 making me get 0’s on almost all my homework assignments”
@RihannaSources: “#thankstwitter4 getting me in trouble in school because i was tweeting in math class. lol”
@MilantisCyrus: “#thankstwitter4 making me fail grades at school.. [:”
@ANTHONYBIGBANG: “#thankstwitter4 being not blocked at my school so i can tweet during my whole class time”

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Tweeting on the Go

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@con_SKEE_ted: “#thankstwitter4 almost causing me to get in several accidents. I can’t tweet and drive”
@JENNandJUUIICE: “#thankstwitter4 causing me to drop my phone countless times during work #justbecause I got a notification.”
@timdeuce: “#thankstwitter4 making me get internet on my phone”
@jazzychik09: “#thankstwitter4 running my battery down every single day…=)”
@LouisTrapani: “With Twitter & my iPhone I have access to 1000s of folks in my pant’s pocket. That’s more then I ever had in my pants before #thankstwitter4″
@mannny: “#thankstwitter4 letting me tweet during awkward situations.”
@Oprettyboy1: “#thankstwitter4 raising my phone bill. Before u internet was not part of my plan.”
@de_moodyyy: “#thankstwitter4 giving me a reason to pull out my phone is awkward situations”
@adyrhymes: “#ThanksTwitter4 being with me 24/7, on my iTouch, my Phone, my laptop.”
@STSarbear: “#thankstwitter4 making me check my phone every thirty minutes.”

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Miscellaneous

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@VanessaNewswire: @mashable “#thankstwitter4 being a part of what defines my generation and staying connected w my favorite influencers and news outlets”
@KillxYourxEgo: “#thankstwitter4 allowing me to remember everything from parties by letting me drunk tweet!”
@TiaJD3: “#ThanksTwitter4 helping me accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference LoL!”
@timmysparks: “#thankstwitter4 helping me connect with authors of the books I love.”
@Lea_xxo “#thankstwitter4 helping me getting better in english!”
@ReallyItsSky: “#Thankstwitter4 for showing me im not the only weird person in this world”
@louisbourque: “#thankstwitter4 keeping me awake during computer science lectures.”
@CoVERGiRLBADDD: “#thankstwitter4 letting me vent on #twitterafterdark when im sexually frustrated”
@Mattheuss: “#thankstwitter4 letting me say what I want, because in my school, I can’t.”
@_LoveCK: “#thankstwitter4 making me laugh and feel loved, even at the most randomest times ”
@just2craze: “#thankstwitter4 always being over capacity. That little whale is getting on my nerves.”
@PrettiBrownskin: “#thankstwitter4 getting me through work on a daily basis.. especially on them 9-5 days”
@WabaCityTV: “#ThanksTwitter4 givin Artist/Musicians/Models/GfxDesigners another way to promote products an annoy ppl lol =)”
@ladacherry: “#thankstwitter4 a listener at any time of day ^^”
@guifrance: “#thankstwitter4 Ruining my life by making me think in 140 characters.”
@MaryJaneMo: “#thankstwitter4 allowing me to know its a small world after all”
@MissAdine: “#Thankstwitter4 keeping me entertained on the bus”
@moyodre1: “#thankstwitter4 for making me see how nasty people can get…no matter the TT”
@_MissAlves_: “#thankstwitter4 not having my parents n family up here like fb”
@SeanMcQueen09: “#thankstwitter4 getting me fired! It was worth it though”

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