Ok, I dig Twitter and I understand why celebrities – who continue to flock to the service as if their careers and social status depend on it – manage to attract massive amounts of users following their every 140-character move, but this is getting plain ludicrous. Meet @Sockington, a cat on Twitter that has succeeded in surpassing the 500,000 follower mark some time yesterday.
Tweeting eye-opening messages such as “and so I slept and then I walked around and then I slept again and then I saw a cobweb and OH FINE YES IT IS A SLOW NEWS DAY” in addition to “HOORAY THE ATTIC IS OPEN awesome view from attic window PLUS I PROVIDE CREEPY CAT SHADOW IN TOP WINDOW wooooooooooo look out socks above”, the cat has gone from a couple hundred to half a million followers in about 3 months, as the account’s TwitterCounter stats depict.
Meanwhile, Sockington (aka Socks aka Sockamillion) has his own website, and some members of the group of followers – which now even have their own name, Socks Army – are buying T-shirts with the animal’s tweets printed on them. The pet’s owner, Jason Scott, is even getting interviewed (repeatedly) and speaking at events about the Twitter account.
Maybe it’s because I’m not really a cat person, but this is beyond me.
People have been saying Twitter has jumped the shark for quite a while (that started around the time the startup launched, actually) and I’ve always felt those people were completely missing the point. But honestly, a cat attracting 500,000+ users with this nonsense is utterly incomprehensible from where I’m standing.
Meow me your thoughts in comments.
(Via Vincente)
Are you just mad, cause he has more than you do?
As for other people, we don’t care. Same as we fon’t care how much billions bill gates has. Instead of caring and complaining, we are working on that as well.
Yes, that’s it. I’m outraged that Sockington has more followers than me. Ace observation.
I’m just saying that all you do there is complaing and provide totally no insight on why it could happen.
lol. No attempt at it even.
Robin, hate to break it to you, but it does seem like an ace observation. You don’t offer up much of an alternative explanation for your interest.
That said, I think there is an interesting story here that shows from the follower count graph: the growth has been steady over three years, not instant. That suggests this isn’t just a 15 minutes of fame like many internet fads. Not saying that makes it any more worthwhile than reality TV, but I think you have to accept it as part of what people care about. Yup, that’s our species for you.
It’s ridiculous that you all keep writing about twitter like it’s news. The followers count needs to be gone. This is just stupid.
I couldn’t agree more!
“It’s ridiculous that you all keep writing about twitter like it’s news. The followers count needs to be gone. This is just stupid.”
Right on!
Twitter is NOT news people!
This world has officially gone MAD.
We’re doomed & we deserve it because we are doing this to our poor souls!
I wish I can punch my laptop screen where it hurts right now UGHH!
Twitter is moronic. And this is just another great example proving it. I had never used and neither will I ever bother with this idiotic waste of time.
I also can’t agree more.
This BS doesn’t deserve any news besides that there are some stupid folks out there spending their time with this BS. At least they don’t play WOW all the time…
Get a live!
First time I head about this service, I thought egos and bums. This article points out the later, now just one more…
what is ridiculous is your unrelenting silly coverage of twitter
lol @ “Ace observation.”
Yeah, Robin is as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. nuck nuck…
(ok, yeah that was lame)
With this bitter comment, you just proved it. I hate cats, but lots of people like them. As long as they can be contained, away from me, then go ahead and do whatever you want.
One good outcome from the success of Sockington that cat is that it brings humility to celebrities like Ashton Kutcher and Sean Combs who actually believe that the number of Twitter followers they have really means something.
Guy’s just stop it , the Stockings would of never had that many followers in 10 years if it wouldn’t be on “Suggested List” Profile>Settings>Suggested List
It’s just ridiculous that twitter team is allowing that. After all that list is build by them it is not automatic thing.
And people follow it because most of the Twitter Newbees don’t know how to unfollow or what follow means.
@spam stockings 4sure.
Ridiculous doesn’t even start to describe this. Then again this is the internet. It could have been worse though, it could have been a LOLCAT
http://twitter.com/lolcrunch
While you can’t get how some stupid cat has accumulate a half million followers, the real point that you don’t seem to understand is that following anyone on twitter is as equally rediculous as following sockington!
CNN = Ashton = Oprah = TechCrunch = Sockington = TotalBullshit
Can you break some news or something please? Nothing but crap on Techcrunch in the last 24 hours. No biting piece by Arrington for days either.
TechCrunch has become a TechTwit, the acid of stupidity is eating out their brain slowly but surely.
Kill it with fire.
Obviously you havent been on FARK.com when Caturday is announced each Saturday . Multitudes of comments ( traffic) . Can you say LOL cats .
People love there pets …
Nuff said
Yeah, this is pretty much it for me, too.
Robin: lern2popculture
GETTING REDICULOUS? Twitter IS REDICULOUS!! Its a garbage over-hyped product that is not inovative or unique,plus its easily REPLICABLE. I WANT TO MAKE CLEAR THAT I AM NOT ALL TALK; AND I AM PREPARED TO PROVE THIS POINT. I AM AN EXPERIENCED SOFTWARE ENGINEER AND FOR $60,000 I WILL CREATE ANYONE A WEBSITE EXACTLY LIKE TWITTER FROM SCATCH IN 14 DAYS!!! I AM DEADLY SERIOUS AND WILL ALSO PROVIDE THE FULL SOURCE CODE AND BINARIES TO PROVE THAT IT HAS INDEED BEEN WRITTEN FROM SCRATCH!!
FOR THOSE INTERESTED IN REAL INNOVATION checkout this great webcast of the Wolfram Alpha control centre as they prepare to go live!!!. There are interviews with the man himself and also his techinical team. The control centre controls 5 seperate distributed clusters; the webcast is a great insight into how large scale datacentres are implemented and maintained. http://www.just...dd6b9f07e7f8a4e
I would say you are either 14 or 48, and you certainly don’t understand Twitter.
I have development experience, and yeah, I could probably build a Twitter clone like you suggest. But gain as big of a user base? No. The users are what makes the site what it is.
Any website is replicable, but the user base is not.
Well your WRONG im 28. I am an avid follower of innovations in the web application space and my point was simply that Twitter has no REAL value; as you correctly state its value is ONLY in the people who use it.
If you study web trends over a long period of time you come to understand that there is a lot of CHURN and that people are inherently fickle; ready to ditch one service in favour of another, if associated marketing pushes them that way. A perfect example was the large scale migration from MySpace to FaceBook and now from Facebook to Twitter!! So my offer STILL stands, and interestingly whos to say that the site I construct wont be the next fad? Who knows?
If your pockets are as deep as the folks over at Twitter (bout 55 mil) then you will have no problem gaining popularity. DONT PEOPLE SEE THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MONEY,MARKETING AND POPULARITY THESE DAYS?
I would argue that ANY website’s value is contingent upon its user base. A website has absolutely no intrinsic value UNLESS people visit it in an effort to extract meaning (and/or worth).
However, despite the fact that people are “inherently fickle,” you have to admit this is not true of all people. Take, for example, Google Chrome. Pretty sure the folks over at Google have deep pockets, but it still didn’t create the virtual diaspora from Firefox for which they were hoping.
Rather than CHURN, I simply think people choose the path of least resistance. If Twitter can give them the most output for the least input, they are certainly going to prefer it to other, perhaps more thorough, sites.
I think you accidentally hit your caps key on the end of that note.
Douglas you have made a cardinal mistake here in comparing a web service to a downloadable product. ALL downloadable products introduce a significant barrier to entry by definition; generally downloadable software tends to have a much slower adoption rate then software that can be simply started in a browser.
Ok for the sake of argument lets flip the situation on its head. Name one product that has aquired significant market share in any web application vertical without first aquiring significant marketing impressions, venture capital or insider influence.
Twitter has a huge marketing machine behind it and this along with the capital it has amassed is driving the product forward dispite the fact that it is,technically,a very simple and mundane offering.
4G is due for wide spread release late 2010, this will inspire a new wave of mvoip (Mobile Voice Over IP) applications which will inturn mean free mobile phone calls. These 4G applications will no doubt make Twitter fade into obscurity, its just people are too caught up in the hype to realise it now!!
Oh and when i say 4G I am refering to WIMAX !! Not strickly the mobile implementation of 4G, that wont be available for some time yet
And you, in turn, are making a mistake in assuming that I was comparing said downloadable software products to in-browser applications. I appreciate the strawman argument though, so thanks. I was simply stating that the introduction of a new entity does not necessarily mean people will switch en masse. This is a fair argument because I was comparing LIKE entities (Google to Firefox) rather than Firefox to Twitter–as you misinterpreted.
It seems, from the little I have read, that you are presenting the idea that money brings popularity (which is true in many cases) and that more money brings more followers (which is also true in many cases) because it allows for a greater penetration rate in the market. However, this is not an absolute truth.
Name one product that has aquired significant market share in any web application vertical without first aquiring significant marketing impressions, venture capital or insider influence? How about Hewlett-Packard? Argue that HP was purchased by Sony, but even Sony gained a fairly substantial market share without a majority of the things you’re claiming are needed to become popular.
Even then, however, a claim like this is rather ridiculous. It’s somewhat like saying: “Name a product that has become popular without spending money.” I’m not saying you’re incorrect in claiming that money gets your item into the spotlight faster, I’m simply refuting your claims that MORE money = MORE popularity and the subsequent claim that complexity and originality of a product has anything to do with the a consumer’s evaluation of its value.
You’re also rather presumptuous in your a priori claim that 4G phones will lead to the antiquation of Twitter. First and foremost, you yourself are now comparing an item you must PURCHASE to get the 4g service to an in-browser application; interesting how you can make those associations, but I can’t. Second, you MIGHT be right, but I would imagine that the marketing departments (the very ones you attribute to making the companies what they are) would find a way to sustain their products (They DO have deep pockets after all
) See, for example: Hahlo, Cetwit, Twapper, Twittai, Twitterberry, etc…
Lastly, maybe you’re a little narrow minded in considering everything Twitter can do. Twitter is an incredibly effective marketing tool (and cheap too, go figure) which allows a PR/Mrktng department to get their message out to a large user base without a large expenditure. No, it’s not complex… but it doesn’t have to be to accomplish the goals it needs to. Yes, I have every belief that given enough time and money, you could build a replicate site. But, fact is, you didn’t; so why would someone give you 60,000$ to emulate a site you claim is “simple and mundane” and will “fade into obscurity” ?
Twitter has no REAL value; as you correctly state its value is ONLY in the people who use it.
perplexed: value depends on usage. name something that nobody uses that has value. even money loses its value if everyone switches to walnuts as a medium exchange. that is, you’re relying on a false dichotomy.
Maybe not you, but from reading thru posts and replies, but there is definitely an element of pussy envy here, because thye’re not on “the list” being referred to here…
Twitter is not about the backend, hell, I’m just a little PHP developer and I could clone it for you, it’s about the product and what they’ve made of it. The simplest ideas are always the best.
Simple ideas are always the best i.e. Coke, Google, Bottled Water, French Fries, Paper, Pencils, complex ideas like Nuclear Bombs are too complex for the consumer.
Nuclear Bombs are complex?
Is Google simple?
Twitter is simple but what’s the best side from imitating something? Face it, it’s original!
No, no, no. Regardless of the utility of twitter, the backend is more than a simple applicaiton to handle the multiple mobile providers and sheer multitude of sms traffic the system must receive.
Actually, Twitter is a pretty complex piece of programming, a la Ruby, its just wrapped in a super simple interface.
I personally think it sucks monkey nuts… but am finding alot of people confusing front end simplicity, with backend simplicity. A lot of shit is going on behind the scenes, that’s why its always failing.
That was more than 140 characters. I got bored and couldn’t finish it.
I would do it for $5000
Boy do you need to calm down
The thing about Twitter isn’t the technology, it’s the user base. You could build a man living in the a desert an expertly crafted fishing rod, but so fucking what? Saying you can build anyone a Twitter clone as an argument against the service is missing the point in such a big way that I fear you may simply be trolling. In which case kudos to you, success.
I was an early Twitter naysayer too. However, that was about 3 years ago, in the days when people were really using Twitter to answer “What are you doing?” and the content on there was 80% “Making toast”. That didn’t hold much value for me. However, people have evolved in their Twitter usage. On Twitter I have exchanged messages with famous people whom I’d have little chance to exchange messages with over any other communication channel let alone real life, asked advice of incredibly talented authors and stalked a bunch of other people
I think the word you were looking for was “ridiculous” — there is no such word as “rediculous.”
Although, if there were, it would imply one could be “diculous” in the first place and that is rather an amusing word. I think I’ll adopt it.
haha! yes! diculous… fund it.
@Sockington is hilarious at times! People follow cats, dogs, hedgehogs, guinea pigs, squirrels, rabbits, all kinds of animals on Twitter. There are over 500 cat accounts alone. There are even hashtag days/events (#WoofWednesday, #PawPawhty) where they Tweet each other.
Not everyone on Twitter is followed for professional reasons. Animal accounts provide entertainment, just like celebrities.
Think of all of the silly, time-wasting websites there are….these accounts are just as amusing to the people who follow them as visiting http://awkwardf...milyphotos.com/. Twitter isn’t just about breaking news stories & sharing blog links. There is the frivolous as well as the serious.
P.S. But the reason why @Sockington has gotten half a million followers is because he is one of Twitter’s Suggested Users. Get on that list and your account will grow exponentially. Almost all of the most popular Twitterers became popular after being put on “the list”.
And how to get in the list?
Get a cat.
Be a cat.
Jump off of a cliff.
The author’s use of big words to make himself sound intelligent would work better if those big words were used properly. “Utterly comprehensible from where I’m standing?” So you’re saying this is easily understood?
Hahaha, good looking out.. “utterly comprehensible”
thanks for the kind pointer, fixed
Big fucking deal.
If that account had 10 followers it wouldn’t be ridiculous? What is the threshold number that begins to make it ridiculous?
@scott – good catch on “utterly comprehensible.” I didn’t get that far in the article because I got bored
Sockington is a character. This is like being amazed that a book about a cat will sell a lot of copies. Garfield does though.
people get confused if something ridiculous approaches the popularity of a product like ashton kutcher. it reveals that aplusk is just as much a mere object as a cat, or a ficus tree and that celebrity is a redoubtable artifice without any inherent value. why should people give a crap about AK if it’s just as likely that a rubik’s cube can be just as popular?
for last weeks ONE SHOT SHOW you gave us a great lead on a Queen and we’ve featured her http://budurl.com/oneShot with Hate Group fighter Brian Cuban. i am not sure we can feature a cat. i bet that MG guy follows the cat he is twitter SILLY
not ridiculous or incomprehensible at all. as mentioned look at lolcats. people like a bit of fun and are good at leaping on the bandwagon. just like joining twitter in the first place…harmless fun and lots are doing it. ecpect ti to rise significantly yet.
A cat with over 500,000 followers – Ridiculous doesn’t even come close to describing it!
Comprehensible? You mean… incomprehensible? Reprehensible?
It’s really sad to see TC get so desperate for things to post about.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about a cat having a twitter or how many people want to follow it. People like cats. I like cats, just not like that. But, some people live in their basements with 40 cats crawling all over them, and where else are they going to get their entertainment?
Not news worthy… try again.
That post wasn’t newsworthy…Burn!
Close.
Burn (herb)… Then the cat becomes news worthy, even righteous.
Twitter needs to establish a policy that if an account doesn’t post for 60 days it’s deleted & follow numbers would be adjusted to reflect those that were deleted. While that won’t do anything about the account mentioned it could do something about "bloated" counts. Would a limit on multiple accounts also be acceptable? If so, what is an acceptable limit?
Not to mention that you probably just herded a bunch more people who may not of known about said cat. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to help him beat @aplusk, another of twitter’s growing tumors.
Granted I never was one to follow hollywood types so I’m a little opinionated.
Sockington is just funny!
Who cares…
I’m not sure what’s more stupid… Twitter, or the people who write about Twitter.
Meow, meow, meow!
But isn’t it human that pretends to be a cat and tweets? It’s kind of strange, really.
I just subscribed to his blog, too.
wow…this is really surprising !! A cat can have 50k followers ? Should i laugh ?
Me love Sockington !
People are having fun, think of the pet rock phenomena of many years ago, how is this a problem or the basis of a grand critique? Perhaps you have not noticed that the economy is in tatters and people need even the smallest things to smile and lift their spirits.
You might actually have something there with the pet rock simili.
Some people have nothing better to do than to follow twitter posts.
hahahaha… ur right. The only thing more pathetic than a Twitter post, is a twitter post from a fucking cat. And the only thing more pathetic than a twitter post from a cat, is a article about a twitter post from a cat. The only thing more pathetic than an article about a twitter post from a cat, are the 100+ idiots who comment about a Twitter post from a fucking cat. And the only thing more pathetic than the 100+ idiots who comment about a Twitter post from a fucking cat… is the one moron who takes the time to put it all into context… and then boil it down to 140 characters.
That was like a bedtime story!
(most) People love to wait in line at the restaurant with the longest line. It doesn’t matter what restaurant, they drive around, see a long line, and go wait with the other people on that line. That’s why the time-honored tradition of paid “ringers” at an event to draw more people in frequently works. It doesn’t matter if it’s a real crowd or a virtual crowd. If something “catches” wind, like the cute idea of a cat having his own Twitter account, and people start to follow it, then others will follow the followers and it will snowball.
The flip side of all this is that trying to figure out what will snowball and what won’t, is an enigma that has driven many marketers mad and many companies broke. BTW, my toaster has its own Twitter account: burntbread:
- I’m hot!
- I have a crush on the refrigerator
- The refrigerator is ignoring me
- I hate the refrigerator!
- Crumby day
I don’t understand the lure of reality TV and Idol, but I will watch a cat play, of which I have 2 clowns of my own. Each to their own, and cats are a harmless(Unless they eat a bird or mouse or lizard) unbiased entertainment option which cough up furballs from time to time.
From where I sit, everyone uses Twitter for something different. Yes, Sockington followers do it for entertainment, like reading a Garfield cartoon. I don’t think it’s ridiculous. Shows the power of one person’s imagination and action. Out of nothing, t-shirts with Cat Tweets! $$ I love capitalism!
I love twitter and use it for information, education, research, connecting with other Internet-aholics and yes, entertainment. If someone is wry, witty or sarcastic, with a valid point – I follow, I laugh – even if I disagree with their viewpoint. What is the point of reading only things I agree with?
And as for those of you unhappy with the content on TechCrunch – troll elsewhere! TC, Keep up the excellent content (and entertainment!)
For the kid who can build his own Twitter – go for it! And write your own TechCrunch too -see how many people come….
(and by the way, why is it that those who complain the loudest, can’t spell???)
ITA, Christina. My life is in the crapper right now, and the tweets from Sockington help me to get through the day. Whether they make me smile, or laugh, or roll my eyes, Sock’s tweets (as well as those of the several comedians I follow) help me to keep my sanity in today’s downward spiraling economy.
It’s harmless fun, people. Relax.
Spammers, bots and cats
may destroy Twitter experience for many folks.
I love cats and hate Twitter, so I’m conflicted. I’m sure this will pop up on Twitter Backlash (http://www.twitterbacklash.com) soon or any other anti-Twitter site. It just confirms the obvious that the Twitter hype is collapsing onto itself.
Twitter is silly fad and this proves it. Next!
I really liked the comments from @blinkswift
While I do think it is a bit absurd, I still get a lil jump in my step from seeing this happen.
Imagine this, you have a unique idea right? You decide to expand on that unique idea and start to publicize it. Pan out to a few months, and you see examples like the one for the creator of @sockington : Interviews, organic traffic, and organic links. PRESTO you have the makings of an overnight Internet Celebrity http://www.vert...google-says-so/
It’s why I’m in business, it’s what keeps me with a job, and honestly……Me likey!
I would have preferred to see Ashton Kutcher and Sockington race to a million followers
Tons of “funny” accounts on twitter:
http://twitter.com/themime
http://twitter....om/ilovetocount
http://twitter.com/roboticleo
http://twitter.com/god
http://twitter.com/OctoMom
etc,,,,
It doesn’t effect you if you don’t follow them, so if you have any issues don’t follow or press “block”. A lot of people enjoy them… no harm done.
It’s the spam bots like these that bother me: http://twitter.com/grained
http://twitter.com/surest
http://twitter.com/recorders
http://twitter.com/newmint
I thought I was the only one who caught the ‘comprehensible’ nonsense. If ur gonna rant at least speak the language of those reading. For the record I’m now following the cat LOL.
I don’t understand why this matters at all. Its not like we have to follow this cat, or anyone else we don’t want to. The power of twitter is that you choose to follow people. Perhaps a better idea would be to disable auto follow.
Who says twitter will not last. Don’t hate, as all I can say is meow…
Yeah the cat is the winner…
It’s the same as search and many applications and hardware before it. Just because one is technically better than another has nothing to do with which one will be the most popular. It is more to do with the way humans behave, they follow each other and if one thing gets lots of followers for whatever reason (could be the look and feel or the PR campaign or whatever) then this gets momentum and gets more followers until something better comes along.
The better thing to Facebook is Twitter, the better thing to Myspace was Facebook, the Better thing to Iphone is Android etc.
Stupid is, stupid does
I am going to follow him too. I love cats.
At least, Sockington isn’t dumping his tweets into FF. (so far)
It’s what’s called fun.
Wow, they think the cat with 500k followers is ridiculous, I’d rather that, than a tech blog that posts about nothing but Twitter and Facebook, which is truly ridiculous.
Well I don’t follow the cat on Twitter, while you’re happily commenting on a post about Twitter.
It’s simple: twitterers are birds and they are afraid of cats, so they follow them to placate them and stay out of trouble
Who gives a shit?
Twitter matters, I get it. But don’t post anything and everything you can find about it. This demerits twitter if anything and makes it and TC look silly.
solution: hairball medicine
I don’t really understand the surprise here. It’s kind of like wondering why people like Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse. It’s entertaining. People don’t just “follow” people for logical reasons – they also seek enjoyment out of their lives and this brings it to obviously 1,000,000 + people. Plain and simple.
still don’t get it? techcrunch has a policy to publish irrelevant, controversial and annoying posts in order to attract comments, attention and more readers. i am biting
spot on.
Yup, that seems to be a primary ad revenue model here.