Twitter is about to become a lot more realistic. Ever seen a person with 16,000 followers and wonder, “How on Earth could 16,000 people have chosen to follow this person?”
Well, the reality is, they’re probably not. Their Twitter “followers” aren’t really paying attention to the person. They simply signed up for some Twitter follower service, and a bunch of people who want free followers are simply bulking up both their “people I follow” and “followers” list.
The point is, it’s not real. Yet, how else do you know who to follow besides checking out their number of followers? Obviously, you can follow the people you know. Authors you like. Industry leaders in your field. But how do you spot the up-and-comers? How do you know who’s offering great content?
Well, you don’t. But, Twitter does. And they’re thinking about going public with it with Twitter Reputation Scores.
Because Twitter knows the people who create content that gets response. Content that gets re-tweeted or responded to. Tweeters with real interaction among their followers – which implies that their postings are either interesting or relevant. And once they make that information public, that could really help those out looking for the next generation of world-changers.