There’s a fair amount of hubbub going on as a result of Loic Le Meur’s response to Twitter releasing a very powerful advanced search. He asks for the option to sort search results by the number of followers they have, which may very well have its applications as an option to the search, but he makes his mistake in labeling the amount of followers you have as “authority”. As a result of this the blogosphere arrives at his door with torches and pitchforks led by the likes of Robert Scoble. To directly quote Scoble: “the number of followers is a useless metric”, that is to say that in picking through whatever data we have available about a Twitter user, the number of followers they have has little to no impact on the actual value of their postings as far as information is concerned, meaning it certainly is no “authority”.
The fundamental issue I see here is the farming of an idea that can cause severe damage to the way people look at and use Twitter, both relationally and as a tool. Requesting the feature is fine but to declare it as a way to establish a hierarchy of value is insulting to everyone. As I’ve said in the past, what makes Twitter so great is the user’s ability to sculpt who they receive their information from in the form of who they choose to follow. The amount of followers someone has would speak to their market value, in the same sense that the Nielsen ratings dictate the sponsorship worth of a tv-channel, but in no way do they tell you what channel serves up the most ‘authority’ on a single given topic. Stick with me here, this is the important bit. The number of followers itself, does not specify authority, however if you can tie the search term with the network of people that the user chooses to follow and involve themselves in, that is where you gain true value and authority.
Consider what you look for when deciding whether or not to follow someone back. If they follow 4,000 people and have 5 followers, they’re likely a spammer. If its the inverse, then you look at what they’re tweeting about and who they follow. All of these things add to the value to the Twitter experience. Its not about how many admirers you have, but how finely sculpted your own circle of friends is. If I did a search on a camera and found tweeted opinions by a user who is followed by the likes of Scott Bourne and Fred Johnson, these tweets obtain value based on the fact that two people who are considered to be authorities on the topic of photography due to their contributions outside of Twitter have found the tweets of the user in question to be of value. The user may have 20 followers, but they just gained the important street cred to make me value their opinion.
The authority of a user is far more dependant on their network than their fanclub. While I agree with Michael Arrington’s suggestion that everyone needs to calm down a bit, and that its just a feature request, not something to be forced upon all future searches, I do also feel that at the birth of such a fresh and clean stream of media that could change the way we swim the stream of information that we so fervently create, it is our own responsibility to be as critical of its labeling as possible.
To see an example of the value in the Twitter network, check out MrTweet
To see an example of Le Meur’s suggestion, take a look at Twitority, a direct result of the idea.
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