Earlier today, David Bradley over at ScienceBase announced that his growing list of “Scientific Twitter Friends” has hit the 400 mark. Given the recent explosion in Twitter use, I was intrigued to see how these science-types are faring in the brave new world of on-line communication, 140 characters at a time.
This is a bubble chart of David’s science “tweeps,” courtesy of the Many Eyes website (click on the image to play with the original, or see the interactive version below) – the area of each bubble represents the number of users followers for a particular tweep…
It’s not a particularly sophisticated analysis – number of followers is a very crude measure of success or impact on Twitter. But it does give an indication of where Twitter users with a science-bent stand. as you would expect, there are plenty of tweeps with modest followings – the mean number of followers is 528 from this particular analysis. That is a drop in the ocean compared to some of the celebrity power-users now populating Twitter. But it does represent a respectable foundation for a science-based social network. And as can be seen, there are a a number of users here who have followers in the four and five digits.
One of the reasons for carrying out this exercise – apart from looking for any excuse to do some real work – was to get a feel for how science information is beginning to flow between different communities and users on the web. This is just one data-point – a lot more work is needed before the importance of social media to science communication becomes clearer. But it does at least suggest that scientists and science writers are beginning to embrace new social media.
This can only be good news for science – it might actually mean that people generating and using information begin talking to one another at long last!
Notes:
For this analysis, I knocked out any users with no followers, and two tweeps with excessively high followings (@guardiantech and @Astronautics) – so they didn’t unduly bias the assessment.
And here’s the interactive version of the bubble plot:
The other problem is that the list of ‘scientwists’ is self-identifying, so it includes some people who have an interest in science (e.g. Bill Romanos) and excludes others (like me, I’ve deliberately not listed myself there because my understanding was that it was to be a list of actual scientists, not of those merely interested in the subject). Given that Bill has close to 20,000 followers, I think his inclusion on this list is skewing the data even further.
And then there’s the ‘medic factor’ as well – I saw a comment from one of the early ‘scientwists’ on the list about someone being ‘just a medic’ – I think that was enough to offput a lot of doctors on Twitter from signing up for the list. But that’s just my intuitive, literature-person guess. 🙂 I don’t think @bengoldacre is one of the scientwists though. Some folks just aren’t joiners even if/when they’re engaged with social media.
But I couldn’t agree more: people actually talking to each other can only be a good thing.
Nice list, interesting comparison! But I just like to re-emphasize a point that you also made – number of followers is just one metric. (I guess I am somewhat in mid-field here so hopefully not too biased either way) We have all seen how fast this number of followers can change, e.g. with publicity. On the other hand, some of my favourite twitter friends have (still) comparatively few followers.
The medium is still relatively new, and we shouldn’t let gravity become its dominating force, but look for interesting tweets from the smaller bubbles, too!
Joerg
I can see the front cover of Nature now – “From Lewenstein’s Web to Maynard’s Rats’ Nest” ;-).
The debate about who is included as a scientwist or, as Ruth says, self selects as such – and which this analysis invites – is fascinating. The Science Studies folk would enjoy reacting to the implied exclusivity in the context of ‘Science Communication’. Of course, if that’s the intention, to facilitate communication only between currently active scientists, then that’s fine; but I guess right now it’s a little ambiguous…..it’s Twitter!
I haven’t seen the ‘only a medic’ comment, but it’s brilliant. Of course Kuhn never really counted medics or engineers as scientists; they were too engaged with inputs beyond their control for ‘puzzle solving’. I digress.
This is very exciting. And while I think it’s great that scientists are talking to one another via Twitter – which by golly they are! – I’m even more interested to see how scientists and non-scientists use the medium to talk to each other (even with ex-practicing engineering researchers comme moi).
Great start to many more analyses I’m sure.
I think of myself as a sort of Fifth Business in this process, Tim. 😉 Perhaps that apple didn’t fall from the tree, but was, rather, pitched by a a mischievious middle-aged woman. Would things have turned out differently if that were the case?
I don’t really think we want scientists talking to each other more, do we? Think of it this way: the exchange that’s possible is deeper, more meaningful integration of scientists into society and a society that is science and language literate, highly numerate, artistically reverent, technologically proficient – wait I think I’ve just described Ancient Greece. Or a Star Trek episode.
Ruth…..Yes, with colour-coded togas (blue for science, red for engineering etc). Better stop – we’re (I’m) messing up the blog.
Agree wholeheartedly with all the comments above. Follower count is no proxy for quality – as the rush to follow celeb tweeps would seen to attest! On the other hand, its useful for getting a feel for how broad these networks are becoming – forgetting the individuals for a moment, and thinking in terms of potential connections between people and communities.
The ScienceBase list is most definitely skewed – I don’t think the claim has been made otherwise. There are plenty of good and interesting science-types that aren’t listed (and plenty that are, that I would think twive about following). But again, it forms a useful cohort for getting a feel for how things are developing.
Bottom line thought is that this is little more than data manipulation thumb-twiddling, with some fancy graphics thrown in. It really needs someone to take the time to set up a robust quantitative study – any takers?
That said – keep an eye out for that “Maynard’s Rats Nest” paper in Nature 🙂
Was ‘twive’ a pun or a typo?
Tim, just remember what happens to the “redshirts” in Star Trek (the expendables) – I know engineers can be tiresome, but we do still need them 🙂
If I was clever, “twive” would have been a pun – but I’m not!
Something the bubble plot does allow you to do is explore the data (tweeps in this case) in a very non-linear way. It’s fascinating checking out who the different bubbles belong to in the interactive version above. Now if only the bubbles could be linked to each persons Twitter feed…
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