Project for Excellence in Journalism

Twitter Talks Up Apple's iOS 5

by Emily Guskin, Research Analyst, and Sovini Tan, Researcher/Coder, Project for Excellence in Journalism
June 16, 2011

Twitter users weighed in quickly and voluminously to Apple's introduction of its new iOS 5 operating system. Reaction to the June 6 rollout accounted for nearly one-third (31%) of the news links from June 6-10, according to the New Media Index from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

The day after the June 6 announcement, social media users were already downloading the upgrade, which had already been released for developers -- and which includes more than 200 new features for the iPhone and iPad -- by following steps to get a beta version of the upgrade before it was made public by using a backdoor. And they were providing followers with detailed reviews and commentary along the way.

Their verdict was largely positive.

"Day 2 with iOS 5 Beta: Impressed. New Music app rocks. iMessages are pretty flawless (albeit "jumpy"), Apple nailed Notification Center," tweeted Arron Hirst, in what was a typical response to the new product.

In the often technology-heavy Twitter conversation, no subject generates more consistent interest than the doings at digital media giant Apple. Couple that with a central function of acting as a kind of social media consumer reports for new tech products and gadgets, and this release was ready made for the Twitter entourage.

The rest of the top stories on Twitter last week did not come close to generating the attention of the iOS 5. No. 2, at 6% of the links, was a video of a drunk man stumbling around after leaving an awards show in London. That was followed by a story about how passengers' electronics can, in fact, harm airplanes in flight (4%).

Coming in fourth, was the fallout from Rep. Anthony Weiner's June 6 admission of sending inappropriate photos and messages to a number of women. But at just 4% the story generated much less attention here than in the mainstream press last week.

The No. 5 story on Twitter was an article about innovation in resource efficiency, the concept of creating economic value out of a more creative use of natural resources (4%).

Meanwhile, the discussions in the blogosphere last week focused on several hot button issues-including health care, guns, the drug war and the presidential campaign.

Learn more about these stories by reading the full report at journalism.org.