Top 5 Top 5’s

This time of year everyone is making lists of their most memorable moments of the year. So, here is my top 5 top 5 lists for 2008:

Top 5 news stories (for me):
1. The devastating Sichuan earthquake on May 12 2008
2. Barack Obama showing us all that ‘he can’ on November 4 2008
3. The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 13 2008
4. The siege of Mumbai on November 26 2008
5. Russia’s attack on Georgia whilst the Beijing Olympic Ceremony was in full flow on August 8 2008

Top 5 memorable 2008 events (for me and in no particular order):
1. Beijing Olympics opening ceremony
2. Obama wins US elections
3. The credit crunch
4. George Bush dodges journalist shoe thrower
5. Lewis Hamilton winning the F1

Top 5 2008 buzzwords:
1. ‘Change’
2. ‘Credit Crunch’
3. ‘Rickrolled’
4. ‘Tweet’
5. ‘Social media’

Top 5 videos (there are many I could have included, this was a hard category):
1. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDqSvJ6aHc)
2. Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLG3S5WzHig)
3. Jimmy Kimmel and Ben Affleck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lcmNaXmjvs&feature=related)
4. George Bush dodges shoe-icide (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uIj0YvDBKE)
5. Lewis Hamilton wins F1 on last lap (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5g9ilv0UxM&feature=related)

Top 5 songs (this will reveal lots about my taste in music):
1. Pocketful of sunshine – Natasha Bedingfield (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMRn2JcSrtg)
2. Mercy – Duffy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE2orthS3TQ)
3. Don’t stop the music – Rihanna (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsRWpK4pf90)
4. Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTiXoMCppw)
5. Hot n Cold – Katy Perry (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMRn2JcSrtg)

Rockin Robin, Tweet Tweet..

I’ve been using Twitter a lot recently and explored a number of applications that have been recommended to me. Here are my top five, in no particular order:

1. Twitter Grader (http://twitter.grader.com/): This is great to see who the ‘influential’ Twitterati are, or who just spends way too much time on Twitter. Incidentally, I’m 35th in the Hong Kong rankings…

2. Twitter Vision (http://twittervision.com/): I can see in near real time what people are Tweeting and where they are from. I can spend hours watching this and am trying to convince my company to have this running in the reception. Much more exciting than CNN!

3. Qwitter (http://useqwitter.com/): Sign up to this to see who stops following you. You can then send them rude messages!

4. Twit Scoop (http://www.twitscoop.com/): See what the hot topics on Twitter are at any given time. Also, use the search function to search for particular terms and see who is talking about it.

5. People Browsr (http://www.peoplebrowsr.com/): I’m still testing this out, but initial signs look good. It essentially allows you to manage Twitter in different ways and link to other tools.
Have any others you would recommend?

I am loving Twitter and all its uses at the moment, though I am worried when it stops becoming a free service. Somewhere along the line, the guys at Twitter are going to have to start making money from the platform – my guess is that once they have enough loyal customers, they will start charging a nominal fee to use it.

So to do the maths, let’s say the Twitter population reaches 20million. 10% of this 20million are loyal users and will pay a nominal fee to continue using it. Let’s then say, Twitter charges US$10 a month – which most loyal users will probably be happy to pay. That’s US$20m per month….that’s a good business model!