X

At Davos, the self-important get a leaderboard

At the World Economic Forum, a Twitter leaderboard is giving the planet's most elite a way to see who's leading the conversation. Cue the snark.

Daniel Terdiman Former Senior Writer / News
Daniel Terdiman is a senior writer at CNET News covering Twitter, Net culture, and everything in between.
Daniel Terdiman
For most of us, it's just Tuesday. But over in Davos, Switzerland, the elite of the elite are gathered at the annual for several days of important talks, unbelievable networking, and presumably, a fair amount of social drinking.
The 'leaderboard' at Davos. Screen shot by CNET

Not surprisingly, Twitter seems to be the organizing principle at the event, and in a bid -- perhaps unintentional -- to pit the attendees (who after all didn't make it to the top of the heap by being wallflowers) against each other, the folks running Davos are keeping track of who's tweeting the most.

The result? A leaderboard showing who's most active on Twitter over the previous four hours. And when NYU economist Nouriel Roubini tweeted (in jest?) that he had made it to number three on the "wonk board of fame," it was just the prompting that the perennially snarky needed to get going.

As Business Insider noted, Roubini's tweet generated a fair amount of derision, and not all of it from people in Davos. As Twitter user Epicurean Dealmaker put it, "I wish @nouriel would tweet an image of the "entire" "leaderboard" of twitterers at Davos. It's an excellent guide for whom not to follow."

It was impressive that Business Insider would write about it, though, given that the publication's editor, Henry Blodget, was at the top of the charts as of when Roubini tweeted.