Wednesday 17 March 2010

Who the hell is Justin Bieber?

If you old enough to vote and buy yourself a drink you might never of heard of him but the teenage sensation from Canada is on his way to being the biggest thing since...well since the last teenage sensation!

And like so many stars of this decade he is particularly huge on the Internet and in his case Twitter and if you've been on Twitter recently you'll have noticed.

The story is Justin Bieber was discovered when his performances were seen on YouTube by his manager to be Scooter Braun. Excited by what he saw Braun flew Bieber to Atlanta, Georgia, to consult with R&B star Usher and soon followed a deal with Island Records


His first singles "One Time", "One Less Lonely Girl", "Love Me", and "Favorite Girl", were all Top 15 hits on the Canadian Hot 100 and Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. This accomplishment made Bieber the only artist in Billboard history to have four singles from a debut album chart in the Top 40 of the Hot 100 before the album's release.

An Album soon followed and Bieber also became the first artist to have all songs from a single album to chart in the U.S. Hot 100.




But it is on Twitter the online messaging system that Bieber-mania really comes into its own. Bieber is the most talked about person on Twitter, and nearly the most talked about topic, period.

Bieber-mania is growing on Twitter and is creating a deafening crescendo of chatter that is rising above virtually every other conversation on the popular social media site, which sees 50 million tweets posted daily.

Bieber has been on Twitter almost a year but it wasn't until January that his popularity growth really started registering, said Ingo Muschenetz of What The Trend.

He started out the year around seventh in the weekly Twitter reports and now is consistently dominating the list of the most talked about people.

"He is very, very popular on Twitter, he ranks No. 1, easy," Muschenetz said.

"He's certainly No. 1 unless something else comes along, like when the earthquake in Haiti happened that took the No. 1 spot for a few weeks.

"If it wasn't for the Oscars, he definitely would have been No. 1 (this week)."



As of mid-Friday, Bieber was ranked among the Top 140 most popular Twitter users but his numbers of followers are multiplying daily.

He averages about 11,000 new followers every day, which on Friday helped him pass the Twitter accounts of the influential tech blogs TechCrunch and Silicon Alley Insider.

If his Twitter account's growth continues its frenetic pace, which it steadily has for months, he'll likely crack the Top 100 by April.

But it would still take months to approach the Top 10, an elite company of Twitter users with more three million followers, such as Lady Gaga, John Mayer, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and the top dog, Ashton Kutcher.

Bieber may be far behind that group with almost 1.37 million followers but he's got a shot at eventually catching them, said Muschenetz.

Bieber tweets have ramped up as hype builds for his new album, "My World 2.0," due out March 23. He's also appeared on celebrity charity songs for Haiti and has even been getting public shout-outs from rapper Lil Wayne.

It also helps that he's an engaged Twitter user that communicates directly with his legions of fans who send loving tweets to him daily. And he reached out to a three-year-old fan who became a viral video sensation recently after her family videotaped her crying because of how much she loved Bieber. Earlier this month, he surprised her on the late-night "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show much to the delight of Bieber's fans.

Bieber's popularity on Twitter is also buoyed by his detractors, who can't stand to see his name on the list of trending topics over and over again.

"Justin Bieber trends really high and some people love that and some people hate that," Muschenetz said.

"(The haters) then tweet about the fact that he's trending, which only makes him trend higher."

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