Top analyst twitters / micro-bloggers… updated
Edit: 12 May: updated with 10 additional analysts
After I published the top analyst twitters last week, I am pleased to say there has been a surge of activity amongst the analyst community regarding who twitters and how they use it. I have now updated the table below to take the new players into consideration. Carter has kept his fantastic directory up-to-date and I have used this as a basis for who should be included.
Below this table I have also compiled some of the comments and anecdotes that people have made regarding how they use this tool as part of their job.
Firm | Analyst | ||||||
1 | Forrester | Jeremiah Owyang | 30 | 15 | 30 | 25 | 100 |
2 | Message | Stowe Boyd | 29 | 15 | 30 | 25 | 99 |
3 | Redmonk | James Governor | 27 | 15 | 30 | 25 | 97 |
4 | Redmonk | Michael Cote | 26 | 15 | 30 | 25 | 96 |
5 | Redmonk | Steve O’Grady | 22 | 15 | 19 | 25 | 81 |
6 | AMR Research | Jonathon Yarmis | 21 | 14 | 29 | 16 | 80 |
7 | Jupiter Research | Michael Gartenberg | 22 | 14 | 29 | 15 | 80 |
8 | The451 | Raven Zachary | 23 | 15 | 19 | 20 | 77 |
9 | IDC | Rachel Happe | 19 | 13 | 18 | 23 | 72 |
10 | Forrester | Charlene Li | 28 | 9 | 18 | 16 | 71 |
11 | Aite | Ron Shevlin * | 14 | 15 | 29 | 13 | 70 |
12 | Forrester | Josh Bernoff | 24 | 10 | 18 | 18 | 70 |
13 | Forrester | Peter Kim | 25 | 12 | 13 | 18 | 68 |
14 | Monash Research | Curt Monash | 25 | 14 | 13 | 15 | 67 |
15 | AIIM Market Intel. | Dan Keldsen | 19 | 14 | 16 | 18 | 66 |
16 | Ovum | David Mitchell | 19 | 10 | 13 | 19 | 61 |
17 | Burton Group | Mike Gotta | 16 | 11 | 19 | 14 | 60 |
18 | Tech~Surf~Blog | Graeme Thickins | 16 | 12 | 13 | 19 | 60 |
19 | Gartner | Thomas Otter | 16 | 13 | 16 | 15 | 60 |
20 | Freeform Dynamics | Jon Collins | 15 | 13 | 16 | 14 | 57 |
21 | Interarbor | Dana Gardner | 17 | 8 | 14 | 18 | 57 |
22 | Gartner | Ray Valdes | 19 | 8 | 14 | 13 | 54 |
23 | Gartner | Jeff Mann | 14 | 9 | 14 | 15 | 52 |
24 | The451 | Vishy Venugopalan | 14 | 12 | 16 | 10 | 52 |
25 | Freeform Dynamics | David Tebbutt | 16 | 10 | 14 | 10 | 50 |
26 | Freeform Dynamics | Dale Vile | 13 | 9 | 16 | 13 | 50 |
27 | SiriusDecisions | Jonathan Block | 14 | 8 | 13 | 14 | 49 |
28 | AMR Research | Phil Fersht | 15 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 43 |
29 | Forrester | Event Handle | 27 | 9 | 0 | 6 | 42 |
30 | Accendor | Bruce Stewart | 13 | 9 | 7 | 13 | 42 |
31 | Gartner | Andreas Bitterer | 10 | 7 | 12 | 13 | 41 |
32 | Elemental Links | Brenda Michelson | 12 | 9 | 11 | 9 | 41 |
33 | Clew | David Carpe | 11 | 7 | 10 | 13 | 40 |
34 | Illuminata | Jonathan Eunice | 10 | 7 | 5 | 18 | 39 |
35 | Berlecon Research | PhilippBohn | 9 | 7 | 7 | 14 | 36 |
36 | NPD | Ross Rubin | 11 | 7 | 2 | 14 | 34 |
37 | Forrester | Merv Adrian | 9 | 6 | 11 | 6 | 32 |
38 | Patricia Seybold Group | Patricia Seybold | 9 | 6 | 5 | 13 | 32 |
39 | Hurwitz & Associates | Judith Hurwitz | 13 | 4 | 8 | 6 | 32 |
40 | Gartner | Andrew Frank | 9 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 30 |
41 | MWD | Neil Ward-Dutton | 9 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 28 |
42 | Gartner | Allen Weiner | 12 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 27 |
43 | Hurwitz & Associates | Robin Bloor | 10 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 26 |
44 | Bathwick Group | Gary Barnett | 10 | 7 | 0 | 8 | 25 |
45 | Freeform Dynamics | Martin Atherton | 7 | 2 | 1 | 13 | 22 |
46 | Gartner | Mike McGuire | 9 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 22 |
47 | Jupiter Research | Barry Parr | 10 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 22 |
48 | NPD | Sam Bhavnani | 8 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 22 |
49 | IDC | Frank Gens | 9 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 20 |
50 | Gartner | Gene Phifer | 12 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 20 |
51 | Gartner | David M. Smith | 11 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 17 |
52 | Gartner | Dan Sholler * | 4 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 17 |
53 | Gartner | Yefim Natis | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
54 | Entiva Group | Alex Fletcher | 3 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 9 |
55 | IDC | IdaRose Sylvester | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 8 |
56 | Quocirca | Dennis Szubert | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 8 |
57 | Butler | Roy Illsley | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 7 |
58 | Illuminata | Gordon Haff | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
59 | Gartner | Tole Hart | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
* Updates protected – average Technobabble score given based upon Follower/Update ratio
Analyst comments:
It’s important for people to know that using Twitter actually helps me with my analysis, I’ve a direct connection with the marketplace that I cover (social computing) and I’m able to find out information at rapid speed, as well as deliver information.
I would guess I have over 100 clients who are on twitter, and we’re building relationships, sharing, and learning about each other.
I have to give points to The Guv’nor – a few months ago, I was showing Twitter to a client and he offered his services to them as an alternative.
I’ve found Twitter to be immensely valuable in understanding the state of the conversation in the space I am covering (social media technologies), getting to know people, finding inspiration, getting feedback, and highlighting (occasionally) some of my work.
As work life and personal life blend into one, more and more I’m finding twitter to be an effective means of communication. Clients also seem to appreciate being able to reach you easily through whichever connection medium they find easiest at the time, whether its text message, facebook, twitter, phone call, or email.
While I’m absolutely certain of the value of blogging as an analyst, I’m much less convinced by the Twitter proposition. Apart from a few of my clients in the wireless VoIP / Mobile Web 2.0 application area, I’m not aware that most of my contacts (primarily in the mobile industry) use or read microblogging in any form whatsoever. Also, nobody in my social circle has ever mentioned it at all, and I see no reason to play the evangelist.
Count me in–When I noticed that my clients were twittering to the world from our seminars, I wanted in! Now we can thought-provoke one another and keep track… It’s a mini-support network…and having access to the other analysts’ who are out there covering meetings, trade shows, and breaking news, makes it easy to track the pulse!
More comments can be found on SageCircle’s blog on this topic
Analysis
It is not a massive shock that the people who have scored highest are the same as those who use blogging to great affect. Nevertheless, special mention should be given to Jeremiah Owyang, Stowe Boyd and the entire RedMonk crew for showing the world how Twitter can best be used.
Perhaps the biggest shock is that there are only 49 analyst twitters out there. Maybe I have drank too much kool aid but I would be surprised if this number doesn’t increase dramatically over the next year. Perhaps the other change would be that the tool of choice has evolved from Twitter to another media.
Methodology
Followers (0 to 30) – Twitter lists the number of followers each user has. Like subscribing to a feed, this is a clear indication of importance as it requires someone to actively request participation. Follower ranges were determined (i.e. more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (0 to 25) that was used as part of the algorithm.
Updates (0 to 30) – How often does someone update what they are doing. This number is purely objective as it scores someone highly no matter what the content of their post (i.e. how relevant is it). Nevertheless it is assumed that if someone posts frequently but has poor content then their ‘followers’ will decrease. Update ranges were determined (i.e. more than 20, more than 30, etc.) and each range was assigned a number (0 to 25) that was used as part of the algorithm.
Conversation (0 to 40) – How many people engage in conversation with you. The clearest way to establish this is to run a search on the number of people who reference @username in a message. This calculation is based upon a 30 day period between 1 April and 1 May 2008. The number of times this happens is calculated with each range was assigned a number (0 to 25) – again this was then used as part of the algorithm.
Technobabble Points (0 to 20) – As the only personal subjective measure in the algorithm, 0 to 25 opinion points were assigned to each blog. People who scored highest in this category had frequent, relevant and high-quality content (asking questions, posting links or commenting on discussions). Please note that I have not scored people low by not having exclusive analyst-focused content as the very nature of Twitter is to engage in off-topic discussions. I also am fully cognisant that some people use Twitter in different ways (such as posting links, asking questions etc) – this ranking recognises the value of each and scores people accordingly.
Weighting – Each specific variable listed above was given a standard score out of 10. Using a weighting scale I varied the importance of the each metric to establish a blogs total score. For the table listed above the following weightings were used:
Followers | 30% |
Updates | 15% |
Conversations | 30% |
Technobabble | 25% |
This ranking system is not meant to be a score based on someone’s ‘popularity’. I have taken careful consideration of the analysts participation into the community and the corresponding willingness of third parties to engage. As with my other posts, this league table is not an end in itself and I hope to gain valuable feedback to understand how I can make this more valid.
Filed under: analyst relations, blogger relations, social media | 42 Comments
Johnny, thanks again for including me in this list.
It’s important for people to know that using Twitter actually helps me with my analysis, I’ve a direct connection with the marketplace that I cover (social computing) and I’m able to find out information at rapid speed, as well as deliver information.
I would guess I have over 100 clients who are on twitter, and we’re building relationships, sharing, and learning about each other.
Lastly, I should add, it’s just damn fun.
Thanks again, Jeremiah (BTW my last name is spelled very interestingly)
Hello JB – long time no talk – it’s been a while since we had that roundtable in NY, let’s do it again soon! I saw a steady stream of new followers this a.m., now I know why.
My favorite part of your analysis is the Conversation component – arguably the most important element of a social computing tool and the point of the whole microblogging thing (for most people).
I have to give points to The Guv’nor – a few months ago, I was showing Twitter to a client and he offered his services to them as an alternative.
Looking forward to the continued conversation – Peter Kim [Forrester]
Johnny
Great list. I posted it on my twitter account to share with all on my list of analysts and techno-geeks 🙂
very informative! great job!
Hi –
Got here from JO’s twitter stream.
Just wanted to add that Dion Hinchcliffe (http://twitter.com/dhinchcliffe) was one of my best twitter reads. He’s not 100% an analyst though… 😉
Julien
Thanks Jonny!
If your readers are in San Francisco and would like to talk about twitter and how its useful with other practioners we’ll be running a session today at the Moscone center, at the free redmonk unconference, hosted by Sun Microsystems.
Hi Jonny –
Appreciate your inclusion of me in this list – I’ve found Twitter to be immensely valuable in understanding the state of the conversation in the space I am covering (social media technologies), getting to know people, finding inspiration, getting feedback, and highlighting (occasionally) some of my work.
Thanks for the list – I like the measures you’ve used.
Cheers –
Rachel
Fascinating list as always. It appears real analysts do Twitter .
Saying “Real Analysts don’t Twitter” is also saying that “Real Analysts don’t Email”
Saying a profession does or does not communicate should be based upon first looking to see if your marketplace is using these tools. If yes, there’s some pretty logical applications that take place.
Therefore, real analysts communicate with their market.
It’s always refreshing to see folks building a measurement framework around social media tools. I’m finding Twitter to be a great “ear to the crowd” tool as well as an effective avenue for generating questions.
As work life and personal life blend into one, more and more I’m finding twitter to be an effective means of communication. Clients also seem to appreciate being able to reach you easily through whichever connection medium they find easiest at the time, whether its text message, facebook, twitter, phone call, or email.
While I’m absolutely certain of the value of blogging as an analyst, I’m much less convinced by the Twitter proposition. Apart from a few of my clients in the wireless VoIP / Mobile Web 2.0 application area, I’m not aware that most of my contacts (primarily in the mobile industry) use or read microblogging in any form whatsoever. Also, nobody in my social circle has ever mentioned it at all, and I see no reason to play the evangelist.
In general, I also have to say that I am a complete disbeliever in linking work and personal contacts and social network tools – especially things like FaceBook.
Thanks for the analysis and the mention. Always great to squeak into the top anything. I’ll take 20.
Count me in–When I noticed that my clients were twittering to the world from our seminars, I wanted in! Now we can thought-provoke one another and keep track…
It’s a mini-support network…and having access to the other analysts’ who are out there covering meetings, trade shows, and breaking news, makes it easy to track the pulse!
Hi Jonny, Another high quality piece of research.
As the comments reflect, there is a broad set of perspectives about whether Twitter or other forms of micro-blogging is a good tool for analysts and analyst relations (AR). I did a survey of the then Twittering analysts a few weeks back and got some interesting results, which you find here:
I need to update the survey seeing how the Analyst Twitter Directory has doubled in size since that first survey was sent. How quickly it grows. >>grin<<
cheers, -carter j
great list, Jonny — thanks for putting this together!
but, of course, I Twittered it before I posted my comment 🙂
regards,
Graeme
Great to see this list — I look forward to exploring a few of these I haven’t seen before. It looks like SageCircle is missing a few Jupiter analysts from their list — maybe you can add @nate_elliott, @dschatsky, and @ianfogg42 to the mix for your next update? Thanks.
Thanks Nate – will make sure the Jupiter crew are included next time round. As this is an ‘interactive’ tool, does that mean Jupiter are now changing their ways and may now allow comments on your blogs too?
I hope so. As I understand it, the reason we don’t have comments enabled isn’t because we’re afraid of interactivity — after all, we were one of the first firms to blog, with comments initially enabled, and at least a half-dozen of our analysts use Twitter as well — but because when we did have comments enabled, we had significant problems with spam. But a few of us have been pushing internally for the reintroduction of comments, so hopefully we can make that happen.
Good stuff.
One thing — let’s use the correct term … it’s not called (as a verb) “twittering” or (plural noun) “twitters”.
Rather, people should use the following correct terms: (verb) “tweeting”; and individual broacast messages are referred to as (plural noun) “tweets”
Thanks Gerry
I will edit the post with the correct terms shortly. Meanwhile – can you help me define the term for a person who uses Twitter.
Are they a Twitterer or Twitters?
Hi there – thanks to @bentrem (on twitter that is), just found out that I’d made the list at #15. Thanks for that! For some reason, my normal radar sweep didn’t find this post. Hmm.
One quick correction though – “Market IQ” is our quarterly research offering (IQ = Intelligence Quarterly), not the name of my employer. Does make me feel good that people are reading our Market IQs though, so I’ll take that! 🙂 (FYI – the Market IQ on Findability is coming up, last quarter was the Market IQ on Enterprise 2.0, and previous quarter, the Market IQ on Content Security)
I work at AIIM (http://www.aiim.org), or if you prefer, in AIIM Market Intelligence, if you could update that and re-sort, I’d really appreciate it. Helps keep our president and the marketing folks happy with me.
Cheers (and thanks again!),
Dan
Hi Johnny,
You may wish to consider adding my tweets http://twitter.com/mgrey — also noted in Carter’s directory.
Thanks for the list, great resource,
– Maurene
P.S. Insofar as your question as to proper name for someone who submits tweets… doesn’t seem to be a consensus. However, “twitterer” appears to be most often used. Check out this site http://tinyurl.com/29ghzl for more than you want to know about Twitter.
Thanks for all the helpful insights here. This has shown that their is some solid research ready to back up anyone who praises Twitter
This is a fantastic resource and I firmly believe Twitter is the way forward in establishing greater relationships with peers and engaging with new audiences.
Kudos to all involved.
It would be great if these analysts were organized in a Twitter List so interested parties could follow the group without having to follow each individually (Here’s my post on the new List feature – http://sherilarsen.com/2009/11/10/using-twitters-new-lists-feature/)