An application called MrTweet caught my attention over the weekend, mostly due to a discussion on influence initiated by its creator, Steve Ming Yeow Ng. Check out the discussion at the MrTweet blog.
Two important points from the discussion:
1. Influence is in the eye of the audience.
2. No such thing as a universal grade for influence.
These points resonate with Josh Greenbaum’s comments, as well as the mantra shared by Duncan, Nick, me and the rest of Influencer50.
As for MrTweet: I’m on the record as a died-in-the-wool skeptic on these kinds of applications. None have given me worthwhile recommendations or insights to date. Now MrTweet is in the hot seat. I’ve followed MrTweet and will share my thoughts once it returns something. As with so many of these social network applications, MrTweet puts an awfully big stake in the ground:
“I’ll suggest to you which influencers and followers you should check out.”
OK, MrTweet. Pimp my twitterverse.
Popularity: 2%
May 29th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Was it any good?
May 30th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
I’ll give you mine, and would be very interested in yours.
MrTweet didn’t uncover any overlooked “influencers” in my own follow/followed network. I have a fairly small network so that’s not too surprising.
It was more useful in looking for influencers farther afield. In that regard, my take is that MrTweet is OK-to-pretty good for newcomers to Twitter.
Basically, I stopped using it altogether after a few weeks. Until I opted in for Klout.
Klout is a service that gives you a ranking of your own influence on Twitter. I decided to compare my influencer rankings on Klout and MrTweet. The tools are looking at exactly the same data yet come up with very different ratings for me — and thus, for everyone.
Here’s the related exchange from my Twitter stream:
[Me]: i have 2 very different twitter ratings, one by #mrtweet and one by #klout. now i know how #hulu feels.
[mrtweetlovesyou]: @bfr3nch haha, what are the 2 different ratings? =X
[Me]: @mrtweetlovesyou #klout says i’m below avg on all measures, #mrtweet says i’m avg on all. using same data, big difference in analysis
[klout]: @bfr3nch Same data about you but the user set we compare you to is probably pretty different.
There you go. Some data, different analysis.
Both tools are constantly evolving. That means you need to re-run your Twitter influence ranking tool comparisons every few months, especially the free ones.