socialmedian: It’s Not How Many Followers You Have That Counts, It’s How Many Times You Get Retweeted

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It’s Not How Many Followers You Have That Counts, It’s How Many Times You Get Retweeted

Source: TechCrunch

Dec 29, 2008

Summary

Over the weekend a lot of tech bloggers got into a tizzy over a suggestion that Twitter search should rank Tweets by authority, with Tweets from people who have the most followers coming up first. Some bloggers quickly objected that this was somehow undemocratic or would give spammers more of an incentive to trick people into following them, and thus would be easy to game. One developer went ahead and created exactly that search experience with Twitority anyway. While others didn’t understand what the big deal was in the first place because their relatives in Scranton have never heard of Twitter (sigh).

One thing that is clear is that there needs to be a better way to filter Twitter (which is a finalist for a Crunchies Award this year) as it grows into a broader public communications and publishing system. I like to think of Twitter as public IM. But with possibly more than one billion Tweets out there, how do you know which ones to pay attention to? What is the best way to measure the authority of a Tweet (and, thus, where it should rank as a Twitter s

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Comments (11)

Jasongoldberg,

Dec 30, 2008

One's twitterfluence is some combo of @replies (to you) + #keyword (about you) + followers + retweets (echo)

Barcelonaphotoblog,

Dec 30, 2008

@jasongoldberg great definition

Solacetech,

Dec 30, 2008

@jasongoldberg agreed b/c you added keywords

Magitam,

Dec 30, 2008

I'd go with combo of @replies (to you) + times you respond back + followers + retweets (the keyword I think is a bit harder to define) especially since in theory it's the full spectrum of us, that we share, rather than just about a particular topic, or element of us.

Thomaspower,

Dec 30, 2008

WBS - Winning by Sharing is the key. Those who hide things with their close inner circles just don't get it. Share everything hide nothing.

Eladlevinson,

Dec 30, 2008

@thomaspower collaboration is the key here- most people don't know the first thing about the skills of collaboration

Thomaspower,

Dec 30, 2008

@eladlevinson hear hear

Eladlevinson,

Dec 30, 2008

@thomaspower the social media sites are a great example of this- the dearth of real collaboration is replaced by self promotion and opinions that are not synergized but isolated

Thomaspower,

Dec 31, 2008

@eladlevinson once again hear hear

Paulswansen,

Jan 01, 2009

I thought the entire "conversation" if you will was a bit out of sorts. It appeared, to me that, the over all conversation was about the number of followers and tweets an individual had that conveyed on them some sort of "authority." That sort of authority is certainly a shallow one in my understanding and thinking. Now, numbers of retweets might be a better measurement and yet even that appears to be lacking in substance. Wouldn't "authority", like Porn be in the eye of the beholder for those of us who hold up certain individuals to be Authorities in certain subject areas. What I did see missing in the entire conversation was the current or conventional wisdom on how we convey or give authority to those we know. I'm thinking here of, what a person has accomplished, schooling, businesses started, books written and other tangible accomplishments. These items seem to be a much better yardstick of authority, than numbers of followers, tweets and retweets on a fledgeling Web 2.0 internet tool.