Data Analysis: What You Should've Done To Get Google Glass

Google Glass A model (i.e., non-winner) using Google Glass. Google

Last week, Google announced the winners of the Google Glass Explorer competition. Like a miniature college-application essay, Twitter users sent out 140-character plans for what they'd do with Google's new spectacles, along with the tag #ifihadglass. So what made these folks so special?

Stanford's Andrej Karpathy crunched some of the numbers to see what it took to win the competition.

Twitter Followers Of Winners:  Stanford

BE FAMOUS

There were several celebrities that made it onto the list--from Neil Patrick Harris to Soulja Boy--but although that certainly seemed to improve your odds, you didn't necessarily have to be in the limelight. The Twitter follower distribution breaks down like this: 26 percent of people had less than 100 followers, 61 percent of people had less than 1,000 followers, and 7 percent of people had more than 10,000, according to the data.

So nearly followerless Twitter users still had a shot, presumably while pitching their "#ifihadglass I'd film my birthday so at least someone would come" idea.

Word Cloud Of Applications:  Stanford

USE THESE WORDS IN YOUR APPLICATION

This is a word cloud showing the most-used words in winning #ifihadglass tweets. Very interesting! "Art"? Not very helpful. "World"? Very helpful.

Twitter Profiles Of Winners:  Stanford

USE THESE WORDS IN YOUR TWITTER PROFILE

This word cloud shows the frequency of words appearing in the winners' Twitter profiles. Some very hip-sounding careers, here. Ideal candidate description: I am a social media/technology designer/nerd enthusiastic about world blogger strategy news.

But it's too late now to use these strategies, unfortunately. Maybe you can still get in to the Google Nose beta.

[Stanford]