This is just a start. The list will definitely change as more places will be added. Also, the ranking will probably be based not only on the number of followers, but some criteria that will include the number of mentionings and the number of lists where the account is listed.
Not surprisingly, many places in the top 100 are from the United States. The main surprise is that so far the number one in the list is @humphryslocombe, an ice cream shop in San Francisco, that has many more followers than all the hotels, museums or restaurants. Social media does empower small businesses providing genuine services who are not afraid to talk to their clients! The New York Times article "Marketing Small Businesses With Twitter" discusses how small business owners use Twitter to spread the word about their services. Here is a nice quote:
According to Mr. Banerji [who manages commercial products at Twitter], small-business owners like Twitter because they can talk directly to customers in a way that they were able to do only in person before. “We’re finding the emotional distance between businesses and their customers is shortening quite a bit,” he said.The article misses the fact that people would also appreciate short informative messages about local deals and events. So, if places broadcast to Twitter, this is a win-win situation both for them and their clients.
We hope that "Tweeting Places" directory will help everybody to discover what cool places around them have to say, and help cool places to get discovered.
