Newsom social without being popular

A New York Times blog story tonight on Gavin Newsom "the Twitter prince" feels so 2009. It gushes about the San Francisco mayor's million-plus followers and personal tweeting — even digging up the birth tweet — but doesn't seem to know that Newsom's now the best proof that Twitter followers don't translate to actual popularity or political strength. The story does allow that Newsom's Twitter presence is a largely strategic contrivance, but doesn't connect the dots that his Twitter activity has fallen way off since his campaign for governor proved inviable. It also barely acknowledges that Newsom's numbers were hugely inflated by his being on Twitter's official list of suggested users. The item is on the paper's Bay Area blog, by a reporter who is relatively new, starting with the NYT as a summer intern out of Stanford last year. Meanwhile, we wait to see if Newsom runs for lieutenant governor.