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UK’S MOST INFLUENTIAL ‘TWITTERATI’ REVEALED

New study reveals the top 20 most influential Tweeters in entertainment, music, politics, sport and technology

Following the news that ‘Twitter’ has been named the word of 2009⁽¹⁾ and after a year that has felt like one long celebrity popularity contest lived out online, a new study by INQ Mobile reveals 2009’s top 20 most influential UK individuals on Twitter.

The new list, entitled Twitterati, identifies the online influence of the 20 most popular UK Tweeters across five categories including entertainment, music, politics, sport and technology.

The list was compiled by phone manufacturer INQ to mark the launch of its ‘Chat 3G’ phone; a mobile with a Twitter ‘feed’ running on the homescreen so Twitter addicts are automatically updated when people they are following tweet.

And although headlines have been dedicated to Lily Allen’s departure from the site, Cheryl Cole’s public Twitter display of her wedding ring to quash marriage rumours and Darren Bent’s Tottenham Twitter tirade, only the most dedicated micro-bloggers have made the list.

The research sees Mashable’s Pete Cashmore in the number one position crowned as the most influential person in technology and across all of the five categories; Stephen Fry at number two as the most influential name in entertainment; Dougie Poytner from McFly at number four as the leader of the pack in music; Sarah Brown is the biggest social player in politics and Andy Murray at number 11 as the most influential sport’s personality of the year.

The top 20 UK influencers

Phone manufacturer INQ designs mobiles for the internet generation. Along with Twitter, the INQ Chat 3G also gives consumers push Gmail, a built-in Facebook application and a camera that can be used to upload photos to Facebook with just one click.
Measuring influence
The list was created by identifying the five most popular Twitterers across the five different categories, giving each an influence rating out of 100⁽²⁾.

Their relative influence was then measured by exploring:

• The number of ‘tweets’ they send
• The number of times they ‘re-tweet’ others’ updates
• The number of times that person’s updates have been ‘re-tweeted’
• The number of times they are referenced in other people’s ‘tweets’

Elaine Quinn, spokesperson for INQ Mobile comments, “Twitter has certainly been the word on everyone’s lips in 2009 but nothing has dominated the conversation quite so much as the popularity contest between celebrities. In the UK we’ve become used to hearing stories about celebrities going head to head in the fight for followers with Stephen Fry publicly losing his lead to Eddie Izzard and Richard Bacon.

“However, it actually gets more interesting when you look at who has the most impact. Even though Richard Bacon now has more followers than Stephen Fry, Stephen still holds more influence to date.”

International influence
The research also explored the current top 20 most influential international individuals across each of the same five categories. While the UK’s Pete Cashmore still sits comfortably at the top of the international influencers list across technology and each of the other categories, the other leading names include P Diddy at number two the biggest name in music, Oprah Winfrey as the top entertainer at number four, Barack Obama somewhat inevitably the premiere politician at number eight and Shaquille O’Neal as the big name in sport at number 11.

The top international influencers

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For more information please contact the INQ Mobile press office at Mischief on 020 7100 999 or inqmobile@mischiefpr.com

Notes to Editors:

About INQ Mobile
INQ Mobile (www.inqmobile.com) launched in 2008 to give consumers high-quality yet affordable mobile internet, and enable carriers to stimulate data usage across their customer base. The company recently released data detailing device usage on UK and Hong Kong networks that show usage patterns typically seen only on high-end smartphones.
An average of 65 per cent of INQ users use Facebook regularly, 30 per cent use their INQ frequently for email, and Windows Live Messenger activity is three to four times greater than on comparably priced 3G phones.  In February 2009, INQ1 won ‘handset of the year’ at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The INQ Chat 3G is available in the UK now.

⁽¹⁾ ‘Twitter’ was named the most popular word in the print and digital media around the world this year by the Global Language Monitor in November 2009
⁽²⁾ Influence was measured using Twitalyzer.com based on results from 14/12/09