It could be that Twitter research is popular because Twitter data is free and so accessible. That's okay. Gift horses are just as good for riding.
The best, latest entry in Twitter research is the handiwork of Meeyoung Cha from the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany. (Co-authors are: Hamed Haddadi, Royal Veterinary College, University of London; Fabricio Benevenuto, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil and Krishna P. Bummadi, also from Max Planck Institute.)
Cha called her paper, "The Million Follower Fallacy," a term that comes from work by Adi Avnit.

We've got multiple e-mail accounts, social networks, media streams, blogs, websites, electronic calendars, instant messages, phone contacts, online bills, passwords coming out of our ears and screen after screen after screen of computer stuff to back up, share and sync.
That doesn't include the virtual reams floating in the ether, enough to fill the Library of Congress more than 40,000 times, said Douglas C. Merrill, former chief information officer for Google, Ph.D. in cognitive science and dude who wants to help us better manage our digital clutter.
"That's 32 feet of books for every man, woman and child in America. We're drowning in information," said Merrill, who nearly wrecked his health helping to manage the details of taking Google public.