Yesterday Loic Le Meur wrote a blog post asking for an authority-based Twitter search that would allow users to restrict their searches to Twitter users with a large number of followers. A number of bloggers were upset over this seemingly innocuous feature request, citing the difference between authority and popularity and how easy it is to game popularity counts on Twitter. But it looks like at least a few people thought it was a worthwhile cause: twelve hours later, Loic writes that a small team of developers led by Jon Wheatley has launched new service called Twitority that does exactly what Loic asked for.
Below is the letter Wheatley wrote to Loic:
“Since I read your post this morning about authority based twitter searches I’ve been frantically trying to come up with a solution with some friends. 12 hours and numerous cups of coffee later I think we’ve cracked it.
You can now perform authority based twitter searches at http://twitority.comThis wasn’t an easy task. There are some very real limitations on the twitter API so we had to hack around it a little bit to find a way to do this. This obviously isn’t an ideal solution but hopefully it will suffice until twitter implements the feature themselves.”
The service seems to be pretty bareboned at the moment, but it’s still impressive for the amount of time it took. Users can choose to search for users with “any authority”, “a little authority”, or “a lot of authority” (no word on how many followers correspond to the latter two), and each result indicates how many followers the user has. At this point it seems like the threshold for the “high authority” settings are too high – I’m often left with no results for queries for popular keywords like “iPhone” and “Twitter”. But now that the technology is built, it will likely be fairly simple for the site to implement more customized settings.
So is Twitority going to mark the end of the golden age of Twitter? Hardly.
Even Loic, who initiated yesterday’s fiasco, has admitted that “authority” might not be the best word for a popularity-based search (he blames his French). It doesn’t really matter what it’s called – being able to filter users by follow count is useful, and is certainly a worthwhile feature. But it won’t spell the end of a “democratic Twitter” because, as Google showed over a decade ago, popularity isn’t the best indicator of relevance. For that, you need an algorithm that can filter out spammy results (don’t be surprised if Twitter is already working on one in-house).
Byte me!
aaaaaaaarrrgh!
dont be fooled by cheap immitators.
wow, all you have to do is ask and we shall receive. i ask that twit contact locator dude and form strategic alliance with a real business model that makes more sense than anything they have now.
GenuineLocator.com – theres only one
We all ask you to leave. Can we receive that in the new year?
we made one too (link on name), check it out. its a little faster than this one.
Hey,
Great work Jon. Simple and effective works always, and the creative/quick initiative in implementing it that quickly is equally commendable. I think sites like Twitority, and other mashups is what makes twitter a force to reckon with especially with its robust API; it seems headed (or already part of) mainstream. I will be using twitority for sure, at least until it is part of the twitter experience within the website itself.
On another note. Mike can you stop these people from posting really stupid comments like the ones above me (locator guy and thank you, who are both spammers). It just ruins the whole “quality” of conversation that can happen on such articles. A “Report” feature would help big time for the commenting system on techcrunch.
@dkf
if you have anything that makes “more sense” or has “greater potential” than what “i possess” i would love to see or hear about it. till then dont be a lip.
QualityLocator.com – grade matters!
A 2nd grader with poop in his pants has something that makes “more sense” and has “greater potential” than what you “possess”.
Literally.
Now that you’ve heard about it, don’t be a douche.
Doesn’t Loic command a large team of 100k+ Silicon Valley developers at Seesmic?
Why is he making random people do this work?
You people may not know this but Loic is stinking rich.
Don’t do this work for him. If he can’t put developer hours where his mouth is to implement the twitter API then let him pound sand.
Don’t do the work of Arrington and Loic.
Sure. But simply because he is musing over something does not mean that he is demanding it. And besides, Wheatly has been doing great stuff with Twitter for a while now. Take a look at a Twollow. The guy is great.
The default search type should be “alot of authority” instead of “any authority” (since that is the point of using this thing)
Also, results are rather slow (5-10 seconds), not sure if it’s related to being on techcrunch or not.
And third, when using “alot of authority”, I really don’t get alot of results. The keyword “techcrunch” shows 2 results. “Techcrunch” with a little authority: 4 results.
Still commendable for being so fast to try and tackle this problem.
This barely works. In fact, with all my relevant tests – it didn’t work at all.
Please test the website before a post goes flying up.
Popular trending political topics aren’t even anywhere to be found, let alone ranked with people of authority.
Fail.
Read the post. I said it was barebones and the thresholds were too high. But it’s a start.
I think the problem is also they’re just using the regular api search results for the keyword.
That means lots and lots of results will have to be filtered out from people with low authority.
To get the results from the people that do have high authority, could mean querying more than 10-20 pages of search results.
This is also the reason why the search results take a long time to load probably, combined with rate limiting by twitter itself.
In short, I don’t think this website will ever be able to do this meaningfully, and it’s something that twitter itself has to build.
@Weslley,
Quit calling it authority, you fcuking_giant_douche!
Respect my authoritae!
Ha, that’s funny. It’s like the Sprint VIP service…ask and ye shall receive…
I want a million dollars in a Swiss bank account…anyone? Oh shit, I don’t have enough followers, that’s right.
If you did, you’d have your million.
While others boost their follower count, stockpile intellectual property.
Intellectual property doesn’t turn on you arbitrarily!~
Or make demands.
I am definitely much more concerned with building the ideas than gathering followers. This whole situation is just too funny, that’s why I’m lobbing jokes.
Ok, so twitter is twitter as is until things like this happen and then we get growth and change. While I think this isn’t a step in the right direction and has the long term potential to change how twitter is used, I could see some positive growth coming from it.
That said, Mike I would really like someone to explain why this would be helpful. I don’t really get the purpose of it.
I ran a search to see who Twitority would pull for the top authorities on “Social Media.” The results were not particularly good, but this app will definitely have significant value when it’s ready
http://bit.ly/WWTS
http://twitter....atus/1081965131 – http://twitter....atus/1081977929 … http://tinyurl.com/8kprgw … 1 guy, 6 hours, and 2 cups of coffee would have been plenty of time to throw this together.
Hmm, yarning… ohh, yawning… hmmm…!
1 guy, 6 hours, 2 cups of coffee a guy could have throw this together – whats the big deal?
@ Loic you should go away and not come back and take your soon to go away Seesmic with you. If this catches on Twitter is dead. It could become just another marketing device for large organizations or most popular to shotgun their marketing, PR, or whatever.
Actually, it isn’t that bad unless this becomes the default way to search. Why is it old people always revert to the same patterns of business. I wonder if Loic has an MBA.
Oh man. The blogosphere going to shit a brick over this one.
Me, I say rock on.
Loic will be the happiest man on earth today
This shows us that to GET THINGS DONE, you should ask Loïc
What a stinker. This is nothing more than a keyword search sort ordered descending by follower count. I could mention “global warming” and have a high ‘twitority’ even though I don’t have a clue about the subject.
Authority should be measured by retweets, frequency AND recency combined with the number of followers.
great ideas. Now make it.
I think the quick turn around of such a feature and sites like http://tweetree.com/ and http://www.twitblogs.com/ highlights the lack of focus at twitter. They created such a simple to use API that anyone with a few free hours can recreate the core features of their business….
I really think this is no big deal. i don’t care who has more followers and what they say. Authority on a subject matter is not related to how many followers. It is not relevant. I can be an authority on any subject once i have followers. He with the biggest mouth is not an authority.
So if i have thousands of followers that I gamed Twitter to gain, now I can be an authority on any keyword that I choose. I am the highest ranking on twitterverse or mercedes convertibles.
See my screen shots with notes here:
http://twitpic.com/xeio
Pretty pointless as its filter is minimal at best. Here come the gamers and spammers.
Cheers!
Those who drive big cars, have…. this isn’t authority but popularity. Throw some A-listers from Hollywood on Twitter let people follow them and tell me when you think Lindsey, Paris or Britney can be considered authorities on anything. Ok maybe a few things like drinking and video making but other than that?
The funniest thing about this whole 2 day kerfuffle is if Twitter really does break through into the real mainstream “Loic and the Twitter Sluts” (sounds like a cover band will be far surpassed by people who are actually famous, not just internet famous.
I hope you really want to know what Britney Spears’ publicists intern who is on twitter duty this weekend thinks about issues, because that’s who is going to be at the top of search results.
Can someone tell me what is twitter?
Can you give me an example? HOW would this be “useful,” as you state? Frankly, I can’t come up with a realistic use-case for this.
It’s useful for ego searchers who are not finding their missives high enough in results.
Simple app, seemed to work pretty well on my tests. The whole blogosphere turnaround is sort of cool. I don’t really use twitter to search through public tweets though so the whole argument doesn’t seem that important to me. Dunno, maybe I’m missing something.
Great post. It’s a fascinating area for research, authority is a hugely subjective matter. One person’s authority is another’s minority.
I’d be interested to get your thoughts on the following blog post – and your readers too! All the best. M
http://tinyurl.com/7akqlc
There’s nothing at that twitority.com
Not Found
Sorry, but you are looking for something that isn’t here.
maybe I should try snopes.com
Read the post. I said it was barebones and the thresholds were too high. But it’s a start.
Can you give me an example? HOW would this be “useful,” as you state? Frankly, I can’t come up with a realistic use-case for this.