You may have seen this meme making the rounds. A Twitter user got curious about tablet gifts this Christmas, and sat down to compile a snappy infographic:
It's the result of searching for "first tweet ipad" and other tablet models, done early in the morning on Dec. 26. The Apple (AAPL +0.72%) iPad towers over all other options in this comparison, scoring 50 times as many happy tweets as the Microsoft (MSFT 0.24%) Surface, 18 times the combined presence of Google (GOOG +3.41%) Nexus devices, and seven times Amazon's (AMZN +1.10%) Kindle.
It's an impressive victory, but hardly the kind of data you can build an investment thesis on. Let me riddle this chart full of potential holes. In the time-honored style of David Letterman, tongue firmly planted in cheek:
The top 10 real reasons iPad crushed the competition in this infographic
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Haven't you heard that every other tablet is confusingly similar to the original and best iPad? Most Nexus and Surface owners probably just think it's an iPad, no matter what the box said.
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The chart doesn't cover "first tweet from my new tablet" -- which is just another synonym for iPad anyhow.
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We'll never know how many Kindle users announced the arrival of their new e-book readers instead. Or how many supposed Kindles were actually Barnes & Noble (BKS +0.00%) Nooks.
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iPad users are just more social than other tableteers. Android owners are all nerdy wallflowers, you know.
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Nah, Android users would obviously rather announce their life-changing new toys on Google+. Surface owners prefer MySpace.
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Oh, and Apple users get so much more excited about life, gifts, and candy canes.
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You mean you can tweet on the Surface? Please show me how to get past the start-up screen so I can try it!
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You gave me a Kindle (or Nexus, or Surface), and you expect me to brag about it? I'm going to call it an iPad to avoid destroying my social life.
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I'm a serious tech enthusiast, not some excitable kid. We grown-ups don't tweet what we had for dinner, and I'll unfollow you in a heartbeat if you go there.
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But professor, I don't deserve an F for using terrible sources! Everybody else does research for their term papers and investing plans by counting search results on Twitter or Facebook (FB +1.25%) for some arbitrary search terms.
There's probably a grain of truth in the graphic, but investors should take it with a generous pinch of salt. Just sayin'.
