Why Is London the Twitter Capital of the World?
On August 5th one of the co-founders of Twitter, Evan Williams, gave an interview to BBC Newsnight, explaining the nature of the platform and the future development of it. What was interesting for us Londoners is that he asserted that London was for the second year in a row the Twitter capital of the world. It sounds quite disturbing as we are used to hear the Silicon Valley being on the lead of the technological field both in terms of development and usage. So what are the reasons that make London number one?
It appears first that some characteristics of the city put it in position to get the crown: London is a metropolis of 14 million inhabitants whereas the Bay Area is close to 7.5 million. This is the economic capital of Europe and probably one of the richest places on the planet (in terms of GDP produced here), especially for finance, marketing and advertising. This creates a European (and to some extent international) brain drain to London which is one of most cosmopolitan place on Earth with more than 60% of the population not born in the UK. This makes the city being open to new ideas and technologies; all the more there is no language barrier with innovations launched in the US: they can be adopted without any translation done.
So this background has created all the conditions for Twitter to spread: a young, innovative population willing to try new communication tools to spread messages to friend scattered all around the world. What might have also been an incentive to push people to join Twitter is the example given by celebrities such as Stephen Fry or even the British government that recently made public its guidelines for Twitter. Moreover, it might also be the result of the snowball effect within the Twitter community in London: it is because the early adopters have been very active and organized that it has reached more people. After all, the Twestival has been created and managed from London! And TweetDeck, the most used Twitter client, is also from the British Capital. From a more personal point of view, it might be linked to the nature of British people, masters of good conversations and gossiping (they must have the best –or worst, up to you- tabloids in the world).
I am sure I am missing some of the aspects, so feel free to add them in your comments. But whatever the recipe is, it seems that the Twitter bird has made London its perfect place to nest!
0
Loading ...