I’ve been looking at the graph that Twitter has given us for candidate mentions on Super Tuesday.

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The first thing that jumps out at me is the dominance of Barack Obama. The entire time he is the most mentioned candidate. At no time throughout the entire day is he overtaken by anyone else. What does this mean? I’m not sure. Is it because of popularity or is it because of the newsworthiness of his candidacy? Obviously, it’s some sort of combination.

What’s also interesting is the person with the second highest peak: Mike Huckabee. He’s been dissed by the mainstream media ever since New Hampshire. To me, that’s a combination of my belief that the mainstream media can’t relate to a evangelical Christian, along with the GOP delegate assignment system of winner take all. He’s done better in votes and on Twitter than most would be willing to give credit.

Hillary and McCain show no strength. That’s particularly for Clinton. You’d think she’s be mentioned more often in discussion regarding Obama. Pehaps this shows she, in comparison was a non-entity.

Here’s a telling stat that may show why:

Barack Obama has 6793 followers and he is following 6661 people.
Hillary Clinton has only 627 followers and is following 0 people.

Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nobody.

I’m not saying that this is why she is likely to lose the nomination, but I will say it does reflect an overall approach and mentality - a top-down mentality - that has just about killed her chances to be the next president of the United States.

Twitter has put out some interesting stats up on their blog. Trying to make sense of it.

Firsat of all, I must be hanging with some pretty connected people. I’ve got, as of this writing, 228 followers and I follow 277 people. And most of the people I’m connected to are more connected than I am.

But apparently, the average person on Twitter follows and is followed by around people. of course, this isn’t the best gauge - a lot of people join, follow one or two people and then never tweet. So the stats below aren’t really an strict indicator of involvement of those that are active. But nevertheless, it shows how loose hubs of people with common interests congregate.Followers/Following on Twitter GraphOne note here. It seems that most have more followers than they follow. That surprises me a bit. It seems easier to initially follow that to return the favor.

Note: Julia Roy gave me permission to write about this. I’m posting it without her reading it first.

A week or so ago I noticed that a tweet on Twitter that showed concern for Julia Roy, a 24-year old social media enthusiast. I’ve never met Julia and while we’ve just started following another on Twitter, she seems to be the way she comes off…a young attractive, enthusiastic woman who has woven social media aspects into both her professional and public life.

It seems that some time last fall, Julia was contacted by one Chuck Adkins via IM. Now Julia is in New York City. Chuck is in Michigan. Apparently Chuck saw Julia, thought she was attractive and noticed that she had posted her IM handle while on Twitter. So he IMed her. They had a few conversations over the course of a couple of weeks. Julia says that she explained to Chuck that she was ‘taken’ and feels that he was “overly complimentary”. Chuck himself admits in an Utterz that he found her to be attractive. Hence, he contacted her. Read more…

Yesterday morning I woke to find that former Pakistani president Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated. Found out on Twitter. Now Twitter didn’t break the story, nor did Twitter give extensive coverage by itself.

But Twitter as a utility showed how it is becoming has become an extremely vital vehicle of the spreading of information. People were sharing news articles, providing links, giving others access to the latest information.

If the internet is a tangled web of computer networks, then Twitter is a tangled web of human relationships and conversations. By the time I write an post this blog entry, news of an event could have reached thousands of people.

Businesses must realize that in the world of Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, and others rumors, customer complaints, etc. can spread like wildfire. People can read, send, link, point to, blog about, forward, comment on YOU within a matter of a half an hour.

This goes back to the concept of reputation management. It’s a whole new ballgame and I bet most PR firms and departments haven’t a clue. It will take a few disasters for it too sink in.

I am one of Bronwen Clune’s biggest fans. I am also one of Norg Media’s biggest fans. Well, it looks like they’re on their way towards taking over the world! Via TechCrunch: Norg Media Wants To Community Enable News:

Norg media has this week expanded from its Perth base and now offers Norg sites for Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, with plans to expand into the United States and the United Kingdom in the next 12 months.They are also looking at options for partnerships in non-English speaking countries, having already been approached for partnerships in countries including China. The two person operation is privately funded but is currently talking to investors for funding to bring on new staff so they can better facilitate their international expansion.” Via TechCrunch: Norg Media Wants To Community Enable News