New Zealander tech personalities, media celebs and politicians are taking to social network Twitter in ever-greater numbers. Who’s got the most followers in this most blunt of popularity contests?

What follows is an unscientific sample across several categories (make allowances, of course, for the fact that the follower numbers are a moving target.

If you’ve been left out, and want in, by all means email me. I’ll be adding names through the day, and week.

NBR - thanks for asking - has just shy of 4000 followers (follow us here, and yours truly here).

Click any name in the list below to see the person's Twitter page.

POLITICAL LEADERS
JohnKey: 13,636 
Phil Goff: 2117

Other interesting players in the political sphere include Labour Communications spokesperson ClareCurran (765) who’s taken to tweeting live from the house during question time, and the Tau Henare account (259) – which, for the life of me, and no irony intended whatsoever, swear, I can’t tell is a parody or not [UPDATE: a comms person close to the MP told me it's authentic ... it's just that the National MP is not totally au fait with the concept of that Twitter replies are public.]

And then there's the free-speaking Hamish McCracken, whom I'm sure a few journos follow in the secret hope he'll follow in the footsteps of another young Labour hopeful, Stuart MacLennan, who was sacked by his party in the UK after a Twitter rant.

ONLINE ACCOUNTING SMACK-DOWN
Xero : 2991
MYOB:  1032

It's also worth noting that Twitter has become one of the primary ways both companies promote themselves, and prey on each others' customers (background reading: Xero ditches Google Ad Words for Twitter).

TECH ENTREPRENEURS
Michael Koziarski (Ruby Rails/web development): 275,992
Ben Kepes: 5997
Nat Torkington: 4890
Layton Duncan  (iPhone/iPad development/business incubator): 2891
Sam Morgan: 2113
Lance Wiggs: (Pacific Fibre et al): 2011
Andy Lark (Dell/No. 8 Wire): 847
Don Christie: (Catalyst, InternetNZ): 846
Rod Drury:  227 
Seeby Woodhouse: 171

I haven’t found a personal Twitter account for Read Write Web founder and Qantas Media Award winner (for best blog) Richard McManus, but it’s notable RWW’s stream now has more than 1 million followers. [Update: Richard's account - with 836 followers is here].

TELCOS
I’m not sure if being the top telco dog is a good thing, since as in many areas, customers use Twitter to complain. But it is notable that 2degrees (which also has a big presence on Facebook) has an outsize number of followers relative to its market share.

Vodafone: 10,402
Telecom: 8498
2degrees:  4187
TelstraClear: 1548

Vodafone recently supplemented its Twitter lineup with Vodafone Treats (2993), a random-acts-of-kindness marketing account that pays homage to Air New Zealand’s wildly successful Air Points Fairy (7736) – one of the most successful utilisations of social networking around, behind the airline's own Grabaseat (21,159).

It's also worth noting that while the big telcos use Twitter for interaction with thousands of customers on a personal level, their also using corporate programmes like RightNow to integrate Twitter searches, feeds and profiles into their meat-and-potatoes call centre software such as RightNow - that's where the industrial-strength application of social networking is happening (background reading: Taking Twitter beyond a gimmick).

TV HOTTIES REPORTERS
John Campbell: (Campbell Live): 12,981
David Farrier (3News, Campbell Live) 5465*
Mike McRoberts:(3News): 3211
Samantha Hayes (3News): 2992 
Tamati Coffey (TVNZ Breakfast): 2038**
Cate Owen (3News): 1989
Hilary Barry (3News): 1809
Ali Ikram (3News): 1778 
Heather du Plessis-Allan: (One News) 1662 
Rachel Morton (3News): 1661
Simon Pound (TVNZ7):  1467
Alistair Wilkinson (3News): 1465
Natasha Utting (Campbell Live): 1047
Kate Rodger (3News, Reel Late With Kate): 1029
Charlotte Bellis (TVNZ Breakfast): 1001
Rachel Smalley (3News): 1085
Patrick Gower (3News): 836
Corin Dann (TVNZ NZI Business):  667
Lachlan Forsyth (3News/Campbell Live): 609
Kim Vinnell (One News): 597
Melissa Davies (3News): 569
Rawdon Christie (TVNZ presenter): 495
Kim Chisnall (3News): 494 
Paula Penfold (3News/60 Minutes): 477
Jessica Rowe (3News): 403
Donna-Marie Lever (One News): 336
Melissa Stokes (OneNews):  498
Greg Boyd (One News Tonight/TVNZ7): 350
Ingrid Hipkiss (3News): 323
Arrun Soma (One News): 308
Michelle Pickles (3News): 289
Amanda Gillies (3News):  286
Hadyn Jones (One News): 256
Charlotte Tonkin (3News): 237
Krissy Moreau (One News): 202
Garth Bray (One News): 192
Barbara Dreaver (One News): 180
Nicole Bremner (One News): 151
Simon Shepherd (3News): 131
Jessica Mutch (One News): 92

Lastly, although he’s not on TV, special mention to the nation’s oldest broadcaster, Ewing Stevens (572) who’s more hip to Twitter than some people a quarter his age.

* Although the two have no connection, on almost any level, it's interesting to note that Mr Farrier's non-doppelganger,  David Farrar has 1414 followers.

Mr Farrier has subsequently fowarded NBR a link to this TV3 clip, which addresses the David + David issue head on:

** Weather is a type of news, right?