Has Twitter Become It's Own Country?

Twitter is being brought up in conversations now a days almost as often as Pitt-Jolie, The Obama's new dog and the Jonas Brothers.

Just this past week Ellen DeGeneres got a lesson on Twitter from Diddy and now joins the ranks of other celebrities like Britney, Martha Stewart and Ashton Kutcher in the Twitter craze.

So how big is Twitter? Well according to recent stats big enough to be it's own country.

With eight million users in the U.S. alone Twitter has more residents than each of the following countries:

• Hong Kong
• Denmark
• Finland
• Norway
• Singapore
• Costa Rica
• New Zealand
• Ireland
  
• Jamaica

Growing at 33% in unique visitors in just the past month, Twitter could fly past France and Germany and be on par with Mexico by the end of the year.

So what makes it such a phenomenon? I'm sure everyone has their opinion on this but it seems to be as simple as giving people with limited time a platform in which to have a voice, share ideas and stay connected. In today's world of economic crisis, job uncertainty and information overload; Twitter is the perfect place to let off some steam and engage in dialogue "when you want to". And best of all Twitter requires you keep it "short and sweet".

So when you are thinking of where to plan your vacation this year or looking for a quick get-a-way weekend (even though the bank statement doesn't think it's a good idea) throw Twitterland into consideration with Aruba, Jamaica and the Maldives and you might be pleasantly surprised by who you meet.

Who's Statusphere is it Anyway?

TechCrunch had a great article on the impact of Twitter and other forms of social media on blogging.

They raise the question of whether microblogging, social networks etc. are diminishing bloggers influence in the "statusphere" (great word!).

TechCrunch has come up with their own way of measuring a blog's influence (pretty much based on how many other websites link to your blog) and they argue that leading blog's have been loosing "influence" while the number of blogs and blog posts in general continue to grow.

Certainly you can argue with their way of measuring influence is flawed or there is a natural diluting of influence as the number of blogs grow etc. But what's really interesting about the article is how new forms of social media can actually expand a blog discussion beyond a web page.

When you look at the number of links to blog posts and web articles on Twitter or commenting on articles on Facebook, Friend Feed etc. you realize that discussions are transcending the blogger's world into the greater virtual world at large. Hence the blogger's community (or "tribe" for you Seth Godin fans) is growing organically without the blogger's effort or potentially knowledge.

And when that happens it certainly begs the question of who's "statusphere" is it anyway? Does it matter whether the "influence point" is given to the original blogger who started the conversation or should the "influence point" be shared among all those who spread and embellished on the original thought?

If an idea or opinion is worth stating, certainly it's worth spreading no matter how that happens.