Using Twitter to Quantify Different Perspectives
I’ve had the impression for a while now that Don Allen (of Poopgate fame) and I have different perspectives on the world. For example, I’ve never made up a lie about a member of our community supposedly taking a photo of a prostitute defecating on a house, while Don Allen has. But, that’s not the only difference.
I thought it would be fun to try to quantify the differences. Here is one take: Twitter followers and follows. Maybe our sources of news on Twitter have some influence over how we see the world? I’m not sure. But I do know that there are some stark differences in who follows each of us and who we choose to follow. Let’s start with followers:
The Venn diagram above shows how many followers Don Allen and I have in common. The size of the circles depicts the relative number of followers and the overlap of the two circles shows how many followers we have in common. Clearly, not many. In fact, only one Twitter user follows both of us: @UnitedWayTC.
Now, let’s look at who we both follow on Twitter:
Again, we show very little overlap. In fact, there are only two people that both Don and I follow on Twitter: David Brauer (@dbrauer) and RT Rybak (@mayorrtrybak).
As the diagram shows, Don (at @IBNNNEWS) follows a lot more people on Twitter than I do (717 vs 242 as of this writing). So I became curious to find out who the 715 people are that Don follows and I don’t. I found out that Don follows porn star, Devon Michaels:
Or porn star, Jayla Starr:
Or porn star, Karlie Montana:
Or any of the other porn stars Don Allen follows on Twitter:
Or these:
Yes, I could go on, but you could just go see for yourself (I think you need to be logged in to a Twitter account to see this).
Again, this is the guy the Minneapolis Public Schools has contracted with for marketing services.
March 15th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Wow. While what people do with their own time is none of my concern, what and who taxpayer-funded institutions do business with definitely is. Don Allen definitely puts everything out there so at least he’s not ashamed of anything.
March 15th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
There’s nothing to hide. Mr. Kohler is elementary at best. He knows nothing about viral marketing. He seemed like a good guy, and again, I can show him how to bring traffic to his blog in overwhelming numbers – the best thing is, I wouldn’t charge him a nickle.
Hey Ed, only a couple of day’s and this blog will out rank anything you do. http://blackpoliticsinmpls.blogspot.com/
March 15th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Sornie, your comment brings to mind a question I’d like to ask you. Since you say “what and who taxpayer-funded institutions do business with definitely is {of your concern}”
Do you think if someone is working for the U of M on a mortgage foreclosure research project, and that person has been involved in at least one mortgage that was fraudulently received and purchase price was fraudulently inflated to financially benefit, does the public have a right to know and be concerned?
Thanks for your perspective.
March 15th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Ed, there goes Don Allen speaking to you in his Satan voice, urging you to worship Mammon the Dark Diety of Money like he does. Don Allen used to talk that smack to me–saying the Northside Marketing Task Force should pay him money, and me too, to market North Minneapolis–saying how he could show me tricks to “monetize” my blog–sure, I got a Digg account going based on his advice but it was such a pain in the butt. I kind of gave up on it.
Don tells me he Diggs his own stuff all day. In fact, when me and Megan do mocking verbal imitations of Don Allen–and we so often do–we say, “All day long I Digg, Digg, Digg.”
Anyway, Don Allen loves to act like he’s got a lot of jack, but if he had any jack why would he try to extort money from his boss (according to the boss’s restraining order) or steal a checkbook from a bedridden vet at the VA center (see Eric Johnson’s blog documenting this) and why can’t Don Allen seem to hire a bright college freshman with some proofreading skills before Don Allen dumps his crapload of bad writing on the world whenever he presses “Publish”?
Oh, I just have to point this out. It’s making me nuts.
Look how Don Allen spelled “days.”
With an APOSTROPHE.
Like, geez, did you go to elementary school while sitting on the back of a truck bed between shifts of picking turnips? It makes me cringe with vicarious embarrassment to read your writing, Don, and yet you put SO MUCH OF IT out in the world.
March 15th, 2011 at 8:20 pm
What’s wrong with following a few pornstars?
March 15th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
Nothing to hide except his tweets are now private.
The “my blog pwns your blog” comeback is, like, so 2005. But I guess the upside is he didn’t call Ed a racist. So, perhaps we’re moving in the right direction.
March 15th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
It was really fun to sit in the courtroom hallway in sequestration with Don Allen pacing back and forth at the other end of the hall. Making pretend phone calls to pretend “campaign finance record keepers” and demanding to see the campaign finance reports of Don Samuels for City Council. Demanding to see how much money Don Samuels paid to Johnny Northside and Megan G. Then calling the 5th ward city council office and demanding to see “the city coffers records” to see how much of the 5th ward budget has been paid to Johnny Northside and Megan G.
LOL.
LMAO.
And all those good abbreviations.
I just love how he actually said “city coffers”. Like, is there a ledger book, or perhaps an excel spreadsheet called “city coffers”?
March 15th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Don,
A nickle? A European woodpecker?
I would hope you wouldn’t charge him one, ’cause here in NoMi, where we actually live, we use cash-money.
Where the hell is he going to get a European woodpecker?
And how many D-A-Y-S would it take to arrive?
March 15th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
[...] Blogging Break Mar.15, 2011 in Minneapolis After pointing out that Don Allen (of Poopgate fame) follows a lot of porn stars on Twitter, he decided to pretend that I’m racist, and tweeted this out to his followers: The [...]
March 16th, 2011 at 6:51 am
Whoah dude.. need a warning for this one NOT WORK SAFE.
BTW, those danged ole internet trails can be a little embarrassing.
March 16th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
the venn diagram of don allen twitter porn is the single most hilarious thing i have seen in my life.
March 16th, 2011 at 7:47 pm
It takes a special person to attract special attention?
You guys are saying the man is special?
Not being a Twitter user, should I be impressed with following 717 people?
It sounds like a Boeing airplane number.
Their latest is the 787, so he needs 70 more to be current? Perhaps he could follow more politicians?
Does he follow Timmy the non-candidate PAC man?