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Twitter’s most popular users are on a roll, according to new statistics from Rapleaf, accumulating followers at a very rapid pace.  The interesting thing is that less popular users, who should theoretically have less trouble doubling or tripling their audience’s size, aren’t keeping up.

Rapleaf monitored the accounts of 40,000 active Twitter users over the course of a few months.  The company’s Michael Hsu then wrote today, "The most followed users gained followers at a faster rate than less popular users, contributing to a growing ‘popularity gap.’"  Also, "Users in the top 0.1% have around 5x as many followers as users in the top 1% and about 40x as many followers as users in the top 10%."

Here’s his and Rapleaf’s proof:

This might be a sign that celebrities are taking over Twitter.  People would just join the service in order to see what individuals like Shaq and Samuel Halpern are saying, in other words, rather than to sort of look around and branch out as early adopters did.

Or not.  We’d be interested to hear any other explanations you can come up with.  And the good news is that, if you use Twitter and only have 140 or so followers, it looks like you’re still in very respectable territory.

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