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The beauty of Twitter is that its force is relatively measurable. For instance, let's say -- hypothetically, of course -- that a famous convicted felon manages to secure employment with the Philadelphia Eagles as a professional football player. And then, just a few short days later, a famous, annoying, hypothetical gunslinger who's retired four billion times happens to stab his former fanbase in the back and get a job as a professional football player with the Minnesota Vikings.
Well, IF that all managed to happen, people would tweet about it. A lot. Because Michael Vick and Brett Favre are quite famous and everyone talks about them whenever they do something. Fortunately (it's all relative; in this case because we care deeply about the science of Twitter, obviously) for us, it did. And even more fortunately, Kevin Kilduff remembered to check and see whose "Twitter trend" -- i.e. who got mentioned in more tweets -- was higher, as you can see from the graphic above.
What does this graph tell us exactly? Well, that Favre is immensely more popular than Vick, duh! Actually, I kid. What it tells is that Favre's signing with the Vikings was more interesting than Vick's signing with the Eagles. Which, frankly, shouldn't be that surprising.
The actual act of Vick inking with a team was bound to happen -- that it was Philly was somewhat shocking, but not terribly enticing, as Vick's unlikely to see the field anytime soon, at least until he learns the playbook and/or Donovan McNabb and Brian Westbrook get hurt, which could actually be Week 1.
Favre, on the other hand, is almost just as hate-able at this point as Vick (again, all relative) and immediately spurred two different fan bases -- the Vikings and Packers, natch -- to discuss the signing, on top of the national/general football discussion.
So, there you have it: we all hate/love/can't stop talking about Favre even more than Vick. And yes, it's alternately fascinating and horribly depressing.
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