I'm a Twitter fan. As a 140 character microblog, Twitter's restricted text parameter inspires creativity. Shakespeare would be proud: "Brevity is the soul of wit." In other words, less is more.
Except when it comes to Twitter authority, or Twitority.
A high percentage of tweets include links to articles, blogs, and websites. Tweeters read interesting or entertaining web matter and then share it with the twitter-using world. Like you. Cool. Fun. Then you can retweet (RT for microblog brevity) to share a link you see from a tweeter you follow so that everyone following you can click the new cool link too. Web 2.0 in total effect.
Now there is debate about who has the most twitter authority. Is it those with the most followers? I follow @astrospace because @astrospace followed me. I wondered if @astrospace was just fishing for followers and then I saw this tweet from @astrospace:
@STS_119 You're my Thirteen Thousandth Follower! @astrospaceis 88 days old, and is the 90th most followed on Twitter. about 13 hours ago from TwitterMail in reply to STS_119
An authority then? 13,000+ followers! As TechCrunch remarks, anyone with that many "readers," deserves some clout. But any twitterer ambitious for followers could spend a few days clicking follow all over the twitosphere, which would work to get many followers, especially since so many tweeters have auto-follow back settings in place using productivity tools.
With the number of followers in question, TechCrunch weighed in again (and endured the wrath of those pesky comments for "slow news day" etc.), this time suggesting that how often you are retweeted shows your authority. Good points there, too (I even commented, but not like the haters).
Bottom line, even retweets can come from "low authority" tweeters, so how can that data be used accurately? Every conceivable category would need to be carefully wighted, with penalties for other categories, and adjustments for "recent" or anomalous activity in order to get to a real authority ranking.
And authority, thus twitority, is not quite right. Go for Twinfluence or Tweputation.
And if you want a real winner, make a decathalon. A Twolympics. And, dare I say it, give lots of points for the content of the tweets, the writing of the microblog. Or doesn't that matter?
And for crying out loud, follow me on Twitter!
