• Tweeting the Bond Novels

    Tuesday, October 23, 2012

    With the premiere of Skyfall taking place tonight at London's Royal Albert Hall (@RoyalAlbertHall), Bond fever has hit the UK. In fact, there have been more than one million Bond-related Tweets in the last month alone.

    Comedian and author Charlie Higson (@Monstroso) is a huge Bond fan and the author of the Young Bond series of novels. He took to Twitter today to undertake a challenge that would help introduce modern-day 007 fans to Ian Fleming's original 12 Bond novels.  

    Higson tweeted a description of each of the books, crafting each novel into 140 characters. He used Twitter to bring a whole new audience to the series, which started his love affair with Bond.

    The novels were tweeted in chronological order, starting with Casino Royale, the first novel to feature Bond.



    Here are the Tweets as they appeared:

    Casino Royale


    Live And Let Die


    Moonraker


    Diamonds Are Forever


    From Russia With Love


    Dr. No


    Goldfinger


    Thunderball


    The Spy Who Loved Me


    On Her Majesty's Secret Service


    You Only Live Twice


    The Man With The Golden Gun



    Charlie also too part in a Twitter Q&A answering a host of Bond-related questions. Here he is at Twitter's London HQ:


     
    Follow #BondTweets to catch up on his answers, or to suggest your own 140-character synopses. And finally, here is a selection of the original book covers, which also appeared in Charlie's Tweets today: 


    Posted by @ at 8:51 AM

  • #XFactor

    Sunday, October 21, 2012

    When big events happen, they happen on Twitter, and one of the biggest events we see fans coming together and sharing on Saturday and Sunday nights is the X Factor.

    The hashtag #XFactor connects conversations about the show together so that fans, critics and celebrities can share their opinions about the show, as it happens.

    Whether it is messages of support for the acts, a timely joke or a hot debate you want to get involved in, Twitter is the place to be. Last night (Saturday 20 October) we saw some great Tweets about the show.

    Olympic diver Tom Daley (@TomDaley1994) was retweeted over 2,500 times as he threw his support behind the band District 3 (@District3Music):
    And a Tweet from Adele (@OfficialAdele) was still the talk of the town. The singer, who has over 10 million followers, has only tweeted 163 times, and used one of those Tweets to lend her support to contestant Ella Henderson (@Ella_Henderson). Ella was shown reading the Tweet in amazement on this week’s show:
    And Ella won the support of a slightly different Twitter user this week - here’s what politician @JohnPrescott had to say:
    Philip Schofield (@Schofe) took a break from the washing up to to tweet his support for contestant James Arthur (@JamesArthur23), who gets his vote:
    James also won the support of One Direction's Louis Tomlinson (@Louis_Tomlinson).  James retweeted this vote of confidence, along with 5,900 others:
    It is not just the music that gets people tweeting during the spectacle that is #XFactor. It was the outfits that sparked off this banter between Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw (@Grimmers) and fashion designer Henry Holland (@henryholland):
    On the topic of fashion, judge Gary Barlow (@GBarlowOfficial) modelled his outfit for the night on Twitter ahead of the live show:
    And fellow judge Nicole (@NicoleScherzy) retweeted this message from @BritishVogue to her followers, describing her choice of outfit:
    To keep up-to-date with all of the #XFactor action, make sure you tune in this evening (Sunday) for the live results show and watch the action unfold on Twitter! 

    Posted by @ at 4:03 AM

  • Twitter Fiction Festival Open for UK Entries

    Friday, October 19, 2012




    Last night at the New York Public Library (@nypl), Twitter announced the launch of an exciting new creative project - the Twitter Fiction Festival.

    At the end of November, we’ll be hosting a five-day virtual storytelling celebration, held entirely on Twitter. And we’re pleased to announce that the initiative is open to entries from all over the world, including the UK.

    The Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction) will feature creative experiments in storytelling, and we’re encouraging wordsmiths from all over the planet to come up with stories they’d like to tell.

    We’ll be hunting for the most exciting, innovative and unusual uses of the platform, and to be in with a chance of taking part in this global experiment, you can submit your idea here.

    Whether you’re an aspiring author, an up-and coming talent or an established figure in the literary world, this is your chance to get involved in a brand new project, and push the boundaries of online storytelling.

    Tell us how you are going to explore content formats that already exist on Twitter — short story in Tweets, a Twitter chat, live-tweeting — or, even better, how you’ll create a new one. How will you work with our real-time global platform, where anyone can contribute to your story at any moment?

    The proposal must fit into the time window of our five day festival— but that means that a project could run for the length of the festival, or even just for an hour. We’ll announce the selected authors and festival agenda on Monday, November 19th and the festival itself will kick off on November 28th.

    We look forward to seeing all of your stories. You can read more about the festival over on our US blog or by following the hashtag #TwitterFiction and the @TwitterBooks account.

    Posted by @ at 2:06 AM

  • 2012 Conference Season on Twitter

    Wednesday, October 10, 2012


    There have been more than one million Tweets about the major party conferences this autumn, making it the biggest UK political conference season ever on Twitter.  

    And as the final conference comes to a close, we have taken a look at how the three events have played out, 140 characters at a time. 
     
    Total Mentions 
    There were over one millions mentions of the party conferences on Twitter, made up as follows:
    1. Conservative Party conference (7-10 October 2012): 490,000 mentions
    2. Labour Party conference (30 Sep-4 Oct 2012): 385,000 mentions
    3. Liberal Democrat Party conference (22-26 Sept 2012): 240,000 mentions

    These figures include mentions of the party, leader, key speakers and hashtags relevant to the specific conference periods.

    Party Leaders 
    We counted the number of mentions of each of the three leaders during their own party conference.  Here's how they compare:
     
    1. David Cameron (@David_Cameron): 214,000 mentions
    2. Nick Clegg (@Nick_Clegg): 135,000 mentions
    3. Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband): 99,00 mentions  

    Most Followed 
    David Cameron may have been the most talked about leader on Twitter during his own party’s conference, but it is Ed Miliband who leads the pack when it comes to follower numbers. We've compared the follower numbers for the party leaders and their respective political parties:

    Leaders
    1. @Ed_Miliband: 166,000 followers  
    2. @David_Cameron: 110,000 followers
    3. @nick_clegg): 92,516 followers   

    Parties
    1. @Conservatives: 70,000 followers
    2. @UKLabour: 64,000 followers  
    3. @LibDems: 36,000 followers  
     
    Most Tweeted 
    It comes as no surprise that the leaders’ speeches were the most Tweeted about events at each of the events. We looked at how much conversation the speeches generated on Twitter.

    It was a close run between Cameron and Milliband for the top spot, with less than 500 Tweets separating the pair. However Cameron’s speech just pipped Miliband’s to the post. Here’s how they compared:

    1. David Cameron's (@David_Cameron) speech on 10 October:
    26,000 Tweets/hour
    Most tweeted moment: Cameron telling the crowd, ‘I went to a great school’

    2. Ed Miliband’s (@Ed_Miliband) speech on 2 October:
    25,500 Tweets/hour
    Most tweeted moment: Miliband saying: ‘We'll look back on 2012 as a golden summer for Britain's plebs, when every politician in the land was on their side’

    3. Nick Clegg’s speech (@nick_clegg) on 26 September:
    13,500 Tweets/hour
    Most tweeted moment: Clegg announcing that Paddy Ashdown would lead the 2015 election campaign.

    The numbers above refer to quantity of Tweets only, and make no reference to the sentiment.

     Politics on Twitter

    Throughout the conferences, Twitter provided an open platform for debate and discussion, bringing enthusiasts of all persuasions closer to the political action than ever before, with an unprecedented number of Tweets flowing across the platform.

    Here's hoping this has set the scene for an exciting autumn of politics on Twitter. 

    Posted by @ at 7:23 AM

  • David Cameron Joins Twitter

    Sunday, October 7, 2012

    UK Prime Minister David Cameron has joined Twitter, making him the 370th UK MP on the platform.

    You can follow him at @David_Cameron. He sent his first Tweet last night (Saturday October 6):

    Cameron joins the ranks of other world leaders on Twitter, including US President Barack Obama (@BarackObama), Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías (@chavezcandanga), and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan (@QueenRania).

    In fact, around 70% of the world’s governments have a presence on Twitter of at least one MP and a government department.

    The top 10 world leaders on Twitter (by follower number) are:

    1. Barack Obama, @BarackObama. USA
    2. Hugo Chávez Frías, @chavezcandanga, Venezuela
    3. Rania Al Abdullah, @QueenRania, Jordan
    4. Abdullah Gül, @cbabdullahgul, Turkey
    5. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, @RT_Erdogan, Turkey
    6. Дмитрий Медведев, @MedvedevRussia, Russia
    7. Juan Manuel Santos, @JuanManSantos, Colombia  
    8. HH Sheikh Mohammed, @HHShkMohd, Dubai, UAE
    9. Noynoy Aquino, @noynoyaquino, Philippines
    10. Mohd Najib Tun Razak, @NajibRazak, Malaysia

    A full list of World Leaders on Twitter can be found here.

    Before Mr Cameron signed up yesterday, the top ten UK MPs on Twitter (by follower number) were:

    1. Ed Miliband, @Ed_Miliband (Labour)
    2. William Hague, @WilliamJHague (Conservative)
    3. David Miliband, @DMiliband (Labour)
    4. Tom Watson, @tom_watson (Labour)
    5. George Galloway, @georgegalloway (Respect)
    6. Nick Clegg, @nick_clegg (Lib Dem)
    7. Ed Balls, @edballsmp (Labour)
    8. Grant Shapps, @grantshapps (Conservative)
    9. Caroline Lucas, @CarolineLucas (Green)
    10. Diane Abbott, @HackneyAbbott (Labour)

    A full list of UK MPs on Twitter can be found here.

    David Cameron’s personal account will sit alongside the existing account for the office of the Prime Minister @Number10Gov, which Cameron has previously used to make announcements, such as this message of congratulations he sent to the Ryder Cup team earlier this week:

    Posted by @ at 1:51 AM

  • The #RyderCup on Twitter

    Monday, October 1, 2012

    It’s been dubbed The Miracle of Medinah as Team Europe came back from 10-4 behind on Sunday to retain the Ryder Cup in Chicago.

    And if the level of chatter on Twitter was anything to go by, golf fans either side of the Atlantic have been gripped by the tournament.

    There have been 1.3 million mentions of the Ryder Cup and the hashtag #RyderCup on Twitter over the last seven days, with the peak in conversation coming last night around midnight UK time / 6pm CDT as Team Europe beat the USA in a nail-biting finish.

    It was victory for the Europeans on and off the course, with 200,000 mentions of the triumphant Team Europe and the hashtag #TeamEurope on Twitter over the last week, compared to only 55,000 mentions of Team USA and the hashtag #TeamUSA.

    Most Mentioned
    The top five 2012 Ryder Cup golfers on Twitter (by mention of their name or handle over the last seven days) are:
    1. Ian Poulter - @IanJamesPoulter (Europe)
    2. Tiger Woods - @TigerWoods (USA)
    3. Rory McIlroy - @McIlroyRory (Europe)
    4. Bubba Watson - @bubbawatson (USA)
    5. Justin Rose - @JustinRose99 (Europe)

    Most Followed 
    The most followed Ryder Cup golfer of them all is Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) of Team USA, with over 2.6 million followers on Twitter. Ian Poulter (@IanJamesPoulter) and Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) are neck-and-neck for the top spot in Europe, both hovering around the 1.3 million follower mark.

    And throughout the week, Poulter and McIlroy were two of the most entertaining European players on Twitter. Poulter kept fans close to the action throughout the week, and on the last day, he invoked the spirit of the late, great Seve Ballesteros with this Tweet:
    And when victory was won, he posted a simple pic of the trophy:
    And as the European players headed for their celebrations, Luke Donald summed it up best, and most simply:
    Plus there were classy tweets in defeat from @BubbaWatson among other US players:
    Finally, betting company Paddy Power took Twitter to new heights during the tournament, writing Tweets of support for Team Europe in the sky over the course:
    -- Lewis Wiltshire, @LewisWiltshire

    Posted by @ at 10:13 AM