Lady Gaga can’t be beat, not even by Justin Bieber. Gaga’s Twitter following has swelled beyond 20 million, a first for any Twitter user. Behind Gaga is Justin Bieber, with a hefty Twitter following count of over 18 million. With varying degrees of snark, professional Twitter rubberneckers have noted that the Biebs posts 10 times as much as Gaga, and still the top spot eludes him.
Last May, Lady Gaga was also the first person to attain 10 million Twitter followers. Approximately two years before that date, Ashton Kutcher famously bested CNN in a widely publicized race to be the first Twitter account with 1 million followers.
To a big extent, Gaga’s millionaire numbers reflect not only on her own massive popularity but also on the exponential growth of Twitter itself — a lot more people are using the service to communicate, follow news, and coordinate massive civil uprisings.
What’s fueling the explosive growth? The fact that social networks of all stripes are becoming mainstream (Facebook is on its way to a billion users) and cellphone users (just about everybody) are switching by the droves to smartphones, which are especially friendly to the succinct postings of the Twitterverse.
Above, a riant Gaga holds up her mic.
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