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And Finally
Bieber fans adapt hashtags after Twitter change trending rules
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 18 May 2010
Check out Twitter’s global ‘trending’ top ten this morning and you’ll notice Justin Bieber isn’t in there for the first time in, well, ages. However, there is a suspicious looking “Jieber”.
This is apparently because Twitter has changed the way it compiles its list of most talked about topics, which appears across the micro-blogging service’s website, so that spikes in chatter about new topics over short periods of time score higher, rather than overall chatter around existing topics. The switchover resulted in Bieber falling out of the trending top ten for the first time in months, something the squeaky hair cut himself spotted. He tweeted this weekend: “I heard you changed your system to stop my fans from making trending topics?? Really?? Where is the love??”
Having seen their hero fall out of the Twitter trending chart, it seems Bieber’s ever faithful (scary?) fanbase all started referring to him by the abbreviation Jieber, ensuring a sudden spike around a new key word.
How said fans plan to organise themselves to agree a new trending word each day isn’t clear, but I’m sure they’ll figure out a way. If only such industriousness could be channelled into something worthwhile.
I think the fact “Jick Nonas” is trending is also a result of the new system, though its not clear if that is Jonas Brother fans responding to ensure their heroes still trend, or whether that particular search term is being used by Bieber fans as a diss to the rival teen pop outfit, who apparently slightly dissed Justin recently.
