Feb 27 2009 ∞

Twitalyzer Shows Twitter Influence

(UPDATE) Twitalyzer, the new Twitter-influence-measuring site that was down for much of the morning (see below) is now back online.

The site is simple. You input a person’s Twitter user name and Twitalyzer spits out it’s take on that person’s “influence.”

Here’s how Twitalyzer describes influence:

“As Twitter becomes increasingly important to online communication, the creators of the Twitalyzer believe that the need to measure the impact of our efforts in Twitter will increase a commensurate amount. While some believe that “popularity” is an appropriate measure of success, we disagree, eschewing this easily gamed metric in favor of something more robust, more fair, and more difficult to cheat.
The Twitalyzer solution is our measure of “influence in Twitter” calculated based on:
Your relative reach in Twitter, measured by the number of followers you have
  • Your relative reach in Twitter, measured by the number of followers you have
  • Your relative authority, measured by the number of times you are “retweeted”
  • Your relative generosity, measured by the number of times you “retweet” others
  • Your relative clout, measured by the number of times you are referenced by others
  • Your relative velocity, measured by the number of updates you publish over a seven day period
Each of these measures are weighted but otherwise the calculation is incredibly simple. We believe that what you get is a measure of success in Twitter that can be applied in a variety of ways. We know this measure is not perfect but, well, we’re not perfect and we don’t believe in holding software to a higher standard that we ourselves live up to.”

Twitalyzer presents it’s findings in bite sized chunks that are very consumable.

While the site does a nice job, it feels only superficial. For example, it does not show you how your influence is changing over time. It only shows a moment in time. For this reason the analytics don’t feel overly actionable. You can see where you are, but cannot correlate that to what got you there.

However, Twitalyzer is interesting in helping determine how influential others on Twitter are. This could be very powerful for those looking for Twitters to help  get the word out about a specific idea, product, event, etc.

Currently, the offering is limited in that it does not calculate influence among a group. It only shows influence against all of Twitter. This significantly hamstrings the site’s usefulness in measuring personal or corporate brand on Twitter.

Right now, Twitalyzer is another interesting tool to see where you and others sit in the Twitterverse. It will be interesting to see if Twitalyzer adds the necessary functionality to become more than that.

(END UPDATE)

Earlier today, Twitalyzer was pounded by super Twitterers like @mashable and @Leoleporte. So much so that the site was down for much of the morning. Here’s a video by @erictpeterson illustrating what can happen to your site when Pete Cashmore (@mashable) tweets about your Twitter service.

Eric did great job of keeping people informed while his site is down.

Twilayzer does look interesting and may be a promising way to measure Twitter influence. The site has been processing my request for nearly an hour. So I can’t get overly specific yet. I did see @bwana’s results and will share more when the site is back up.

For now, here is a list of Twitalyzer’s most influential people on Twitter.

Username:

On the site, you can also “sort these fine folks by their influence, their signal-to-noise ratio, their contribution, velocity, and clout.”

Other lists: Top 10 Influencers, Top 100 Influencers, 100 Most Signal-Rich, 100 Most Generous, 100 Most Prolific, 100 Most Referenced, 100 Most Recent Analyses

(via @bwana tweet)

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