On Twitter, Who Needs a Check Mark When You Can Have a Rat?
In May of 2006, the New York Times ran an article about the increasing popularity of Twitter. The article stated that “Twitter is now the world’s third biggest social network, with over 60 million regular users.” At the time, there were just under 20 million Twitter users worldwide.
The Times’ reporter, Neil Strauss, cited a number of statistics that indicated that Twitter was indeed a runaway success. He reported “The number of tweets posted by the top 1% of celebrities has nearly doubled from 5 million to 8 million in the last year.”
He also noted “The number of Tweets written on the Twitter service has now surpassed the number from MySpace and MySpace Homepages combined.”
The article went on to report that “[m]uch of what they say is on Twitter is true.” The article summarized “The majority of people using Twitter can be found in the business world. They work in big companies as journalists, as engineers, as editors, as accountants, in IT, and as lawyers, in public relations and media.”
And it concluded that “[t]he bottom line is that Twitter is becoming a major force for good in the social networking world.”
The article was published in May of 2006. The following year, the number of “regular” Twitter users was over 26 million. The year after that, it reached over 40 million.
And it appears that the number of Twitter users is increasing rapidly. According to the Twitter stats page, they are at 6.2 million active users (as of the end of July 2014).
So, how is that possible?
The Times, however, had no doubt that the “new social media” revolution was upon us. On September 28, 2006, it reported “A new social media revolution is about to start, and Twitter is leading the way.”
On September 4, 2010, the Times reported “The buzz about Twitter is only growing. The buzz is all about the future.” In February of 2017, the Times stated “The future of Twitter may be more like a reality TV show than an artform.”
The Times, for the most part, seemed to believe that Twitter was the next