Twitter is an online news and social networking service where users post and interact with messages limited to 280 characters, known as "tweets."

Registered users can post tweets, but those who are unregistered can only read them. Tweets are publicly visible by default, but senders can restrict message delivery to just their followers. Users may subscribe to other users' tweets—this is known as "following" and subscribers are known as "followers.” Follower counts provide an indicator of a Twitter account’s popularity. Individual tweets can be forwarded by other users to their own feed, a process known as a "retweet". Users can also "like" (formerly "favorite") individual tweets.

Thinknum tracks Twitter pages of verified accounts. An account may be verified by Twitter if it is determined to be an account of public interest. Typically, this includes accounts maintained by users in music, acting, fashion, government, politics, religion, journalism, media, sports, business, and other key interest areas. Subsidiary companies are mapped back to their holding companies within the data set.

Users have the ability to group Twitter pages into lists, which can be given a name to reflect the category. Users can choose to make their lists publicly visible on their profile page; the listed count contains the number of public lists that the account is a member of. Given that most users have far less people in their lists than they follow, one could assume they’re choosing their lists based on a strong bond. Whether or not a user crosses that threshold is likely to have a popularity component.