Who Cares About the State of the Union? What Does the iPad Look Like?

The iPad is more important than the State of the Union address, at least among Twitter users, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism's New Media Index for the week of Jan. 25-29.

The new Apple tablet didn't fare as well in the blogosphere, coming in as the No. 5 topic, well behind the winner, which was the British Broadcasting Corp.'s airing of the first-ever film shot by chimpanzees (also, apparently, more important than the State of the Union).

According to the New Media Index, the iPad was the No. 1 topic on Twitter, representing 18 percent of new links for the week. It was followed by: stories about the economy, including a CNN poll finding that three out of four Americans believe much of the federal stimulus money has been wasted, at 16 percent; the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti at 13 percent; President Barack Obama's call to end the ban on gays in the military at 8 percent; and the State of the Union speech, also at 8 percent.

The BBC's The Chimpcam Project dominated blogs at 23 percent, followed by: a Jan. 24 column in The Washington Post by Obama's campaign manager, David Plouffe, offering suggestions to Congress Democrats for the upcoming midterm elections, at 11 percent; the death of author J.D. Salinger at 9 percent; a BBC News report about a French parliamentary committee recommending a partial ban on women wearing Islamic veils in certain public spaces at 8 percent; and the iPad at 7 percent.
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