NOWSOURCING

With the widespread growth and popularity of Twitter these days, the userbase so broad, do you know your place within this vast social network? How do you rank amongst your fellow Tweeple?

The following 10 Twitter ranking websites are being graded on a scale of 1-10 for:

• Overall site score
• Significance of their Twitter account scoring system
• Value of the information provided
• User interface design
• Traffic (unique visitors per month, based upon data from Compete)

Twitterank

Overall Site Ranking: 5
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 6
User Interface: 3
Traffic: 9,430

On Twitterank, my current ranking is 21.92, which is in the 88.87 percentile, and has 33.33% confidence. Wtf? Exactly. So the rank itself is still unclear, but the percentile means that my account is “better” than 88% of other Twitter users… but, not to worry, the algorithm has only 33% confidence in the score. Which means it thinks there’s a 67% chance it’s wrong. Seems pointless.

Twitterholic

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 7
User Interface: 4
Traffic: 143,209

I’m ranked 33,106th according to followers, and 479th in my location (San Francisco). Alright, harsh, but not so bad. Taking a closer look, I see that the last time Twitterholic actually looked at my account was the end of May. Even after clicking the “Crawl My Stats!” button, nothing is updated. They seem to base the rankings solely upon the number of followers you have, which can be a factor if you’re up there, or can really not make a difference if none of your followers are active – or, uh, human.

BuzzOm

Overall Site Ranking: 6
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 5
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 28,258

Apparently my “Twitin” score on BuzzOm is 54. Under the FAQ section, they describe the score as “a measure of your social activity in Twitter. These are calculated using simple behavioral model of the user. This has been tested among 2 lakhs users.” Huh? What is a “lakh user”? (This seems to be from an overuse of Google Translate, perhaps.) Thankfully it’s gone into more detail in the next question, and says it takes in consideration a user’s retweet, tweet efficiency, and influence scores. Where do I find those? Okay, this is vague and I’m just plain lost in how they come up with it.

Tweefight

Overall Site Ranking: 6
Reputation: 6
Information Quality: 3
User Interface: 9
Traffic: 1,280

Tweefight is actually kinda fun, and doesn’t give an official ‘score’. Tweefight compares you to another Twitter user and you go head to head to “fight” it out. I put myself up against @NowSourcing and lost. Putting myself up against my real ‘archenemy’ showed that I came out ahead. With Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and Oprah (@oprah) head to head, see who comes out in first:

What is it basing the fight results on? “Tweerank,” which claims to be made up of any factor you can think of (i.e. a user’s involvement, followers, updates, etc). Who cares? It’s still fun.

TwitRank.me

Overall Site Ranking: 7.5
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 8
Traffic: minimal (not enough data)

Got a 7 out of 10 on TwitRank. Not much explanation, but considering they first display my amount of followers, how many folks I’m following, and how many total updates I have, these are likely the deciding factors. This gets me to thinking, what if a company, that knows nothing of social media, looks to hire an ‘expert’ and uses their Twitter account ranking as a deciding tool? Well, that means so many of these wannabe “social media experts” will be getting jobs, without knowing how to get the results for clients. Would that make them con artists, spammers, or just ignorant?

Twitter Score

Overall Site Ranking: 7.5
Reputation: 8
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 9
Traffic: 9,971

On Twitter Score, there are two different ranks/scores listed. The Twitter Score they came up with for my account is 7.9 out of 10. My rank is 6,532 out of 78,825. No explanation provided for either number, but there is a nifty little graph of followers/friends available. Useful? Not without a shown method to how it calculates scores.

Twinfluence

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 8
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 6
Traffic: 32,134

Apparently my rank is 1,917 on Twinfluence out of all Twitter users, with a 99% score, and 100% “2nd order followers”. Like the scores, but let’s see if they have any semblance of accuracy. They calculate followers, plus second-degree followers, to come up with your ‘reach’. So apparently my ‘reach’ is to 100% of the Twitterverse, which means that if I Tweet something with great impact, that Tweet could potentially be seen by all Twitter users. They also somehow calculate the constant growth and the individual influence of your followers, so that apparently works into the score – though it doesn’t say which.

FollowCost

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 5
Information Quality: 9
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 5,373

Let me stop laughing first at a few of my friends that are “nuclear” to follow. Okay. It is seemingly useless, but so much fun. FollowCost lets you know how annoying it will be to follow any given Twitter user, based upon the average amount of Tweets they make per day. Sean Combs (@iamdiddy) is one of the nuclear folk to follow.

If they update too much, the screen shakes (well, the browser screen) with a graphic that says “Nuclear Follow Cost,” meaning don’t follow this person unless you’re obsessed with them.

Retweetrank

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 7
User Interface: 4
Traffic: 20,427

Here we get to see the scores of our fellow Tweeple based upon how many mentions they’ve gotten from other Twitter users. This is the essence of the popularity contest. High numbers of followers do not necessarily turn out the activity and interactivity that you’re looking for. Retweetrank shows how much you’re being retweeted and publicly messaged, plus what percentile you’re in amongst other Twitterers (I scored a retweet rank of 8405).

The Winner

Twitter Grader

Overall Site Ranking: 8
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 257,938

My current rank is 98.9 through the Twitter Grader system. When I first checked back in February, it was 63. The highest (about two weeks ago) was 99.7. They say the ranking is based upon the total number of your followers along with the ratio of how many you are following to how many are subscribed to your updates, the amount and pace of updates, and how engaged you are (i.e. conversations, mentioning other Tweeple and them mentioning you). Additionally, Twitter Grader ranks you amongst your peers, based upon your “grade” and location.