Yes! Of course Twitter is part of economics. Each day there are millions of users supplying content at essentially no cost (granted, some of it is more valuable than others). At the exact same time (unless your Kanye West), there are people you can follow and get updates from. Every fraction of a second, supply and demand factors are occurring right in front of our computer screens. What does this have to do with economics you ask? Who you decide to follow is a choice, and that choice is based on some characteristics of the individual. For the most part, we follow our friends, a few fast food restaurants, and some celebrities.
Using Regular Express, a colleague and I have captured demand characteristics for pundits. We evaluate whether a professional prognosticator, like Nate Silver, earns more followers (more demand) whenever they supply confidence or accuracy. We collected tweets from the 2012 MLB playoffs and World Series, the 2013 NFL Super Bowl, and currently combing through the 2013 NCAA March Madness tournament. Our samples are based on demand for professional pundits (verified Twitter accounts), self-proclaimed professionals (based on their Twitter bio), and the general public.
The results might surprise you!
Thank you to WSU News for covering our research. If you're interested in reading the more technical results, they can be found on my colleague's site.
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