Tweeting is a sport and Uniqlo are playing the game well

Uniqlo have launched another really interesting Tweet based gadget to promote their latest range of sports clothing. Sportweet rates you against all the other Twitter users according to some unknown algorithm and places you somewhere in the World Ranking. The result is fairly meaningless and yet I feel compelled to take part regardless. I'm not sure if this is because the technology intrigues me or that for some reason my Tweet World Ranking actually matters to me. I want to be a valuable part of a social media experience. Anyway...

Uniqlo seem to be on a role at the moment, producing some really engaging ways to use Twitter. For me the product shots on this latest effort are a little long but I still wanted to hang around for my results so they kept my attention.

I think they need to be a bit careful they don't end up overdoing it with Twitter or it could all just become a little too predictable. In the meantime though enjoy some of their fun and totally useless toys.

UTweet

Color Tweet
Sportweet

Tweetminster Predicts...

Someone asked me if I thought that the political opinions of twitter users would be a true reflection of the voting public. I mused for a while, thinking about the twitter demographic and decided that a twitter poll would probably show a similar skew to those run by news papers or TV channels.

It seems however that Twitter's election predictions proved pretty accurate.

Final Tweetminster prediction was:
Conservatives 35%

Labour 30%

Liberal Democrats 27%

Others 8%

The actual results were:
Conservatives 37%

Labour 30%

Liberal Democrats 24%

Others 10%

#leadersdebate

Last night's debate was fascinating but what made it truly amazing was the real time response by the voting public empowered by social media to air their views alongside the three candidates. According to @tweetminster #leadersdebate tweets totalled 184,396 with an average frequency of 29.06 tweets per second and with a total of 36,483 tweeters taking part.

I think some of the unrepresented parties missed a trick and I hope during the subsequent debates we will see them having their say online too (if they are permitted). It would be of great benefit to the Green Party, who according to Vote for Policies are gaining public favour, if @CarolineLucas was making comments on policies rather than “Indian veggie food” while the 3 main party leaders are sweating it out under public scrutiny.

Last night I thought the election would be won or lost not on the content of the debates themselves but on the way the parties were represented in the media as a result. This morning I think it will have more to do with the way we all report it, on our twitter feeds, blogs and Facebook pages. I will be watching the next debates with interest... and Twitter.