

Twitter Retweet API is all about TweetRank - Fenn
http://fenn.posterous.com/twitter-retweet-api-is-all-about-tweetrank

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andreyf
Um, not only is it insanely trivial easy to game, but it would have also been
easy to "TweetRank" by counting the number of @-mentions of an account.

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Fenn
Absolutely, this is the technique used by Topsy/etc. That said, @ mentions
have multiple contexts (replies, mentions, retweet, follow-friday, etc).

The formal retweet structure lets you build a true/formally defined social
graph.

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pierrefar
The graph, as you say, is only for one aspect (retweets). It would be neat if
a tool can figure out the context and build multiple social graphs.

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trezor
I just use twitter to post status updates, I don't know nor care what
tweetrank is, and I don't try to game the system or get a million people
following me. I follow friends and friends follow me.

I never retweet stuff. To me that is the equivalent of mass email forwards and
god I hate those.

Is it time for me to feel weird now or is it just the world that has gone
crazy over some new emperor's clothes?

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njharman
You just commented on a site that is essentially a ranked / voted list of
retweets.

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trezor
I have serious doubts about that being true. What about people submitting
their own content? Stuff from RSS? Irc? Forwards at work? Random discovery?
Only links I have ever _seen_ on twitter is to Wil Weathon's blog posts. Not a
single link I have posted on HN/reddit has ever come from twitter.

Guess my friends are more interested in posting original stuff than plugging
content, and I'm pretty happy about that. If it's on their site, my RSS reader
checks the internet 400x more times a day than I check twitter myself.

I think some twitter "power users" are oblivious to the fact that to everyone
else it doesn't have to be the end all be all new everything communication
platform it is to them. Me at least, I'm fully open about my ignorance about
other uses :)

