answered question
0
Votes
Votes
9
Answers
Answers
M$1.00
Should Twitter add authority search?
Loic had an interesting post about adding authority to twitter's search feature.
http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/12/twitter-we-need-search-by-authority.html
Should they add it?
What other types of search filters/options should they have?
http://www.loiclemeur.com/english/2008/12/twitter-we-need-search-by-authority.html
Should they add it?
What other types of search filters/options should they have?
|
Report
answers (9)
This is a very, very broad question you post. Based upon what Loic says, it appears that he doesn't want to deal with the librarian's sort of authority. For librarian's, authority refers to authorized name. With so many John Does, how do you differentiate them?
Loic brings up in his post about perhaps using followers as a mark. I am against that. Just as PageRank measures popularity rather than authority so it is with followers. Followers alone would make Barack Obama and Kevin Rose absolute authorities. As a metric for establishing authority, I would say follower counts happen to be a non-starter.
Authority is a qualitative concept rather than a quantitative one for most aspects of life. Only in the sciences have there been attempts to make such quantitative. Within that defined, narrower than general life community does it work. As Twitter does not have ways of verifying academic credentials, this is probably not what is meant either.
Now if we're defining authority as who has the loudest voice online, Twitter should not be the sole definition. With the different platforms Leo Laporte is producing content on, he has not just a loud voice in tech but also multiple voices in tech. Some of his podcast listeners won't receive his radio show and vice versa. Twitter is just one platform among many as Identica as well as the TWiT Army (which Leo Laporte seems to hang out at more than on Twitter) are out there as alternatives.
While Loic Lemur has a neat post with an intriguing idea, I am going to say that the foundation is not laid for it completely. This is an R&D question. Until that is done, I don't think authority search should be instituted.
Loic brings up in his post about perhaps using followers as a mark. I am against that. Just as PageRank measures popularity rather than authority so it is with followers. Followers alone would make Barack Obama and Kevin Rose absolute authorities. As a metric for establishing authority, I would say follower counts happen to be a non-starter.
Authority is a qualitative concept rather than a quantitative one for most aspects of life. Only in the sciences have there been attempts to make such quantitative. Within that defined, narrower than general life community does it work. As Twitter does not have ways of verifying academic credentials, this is probably not what is meant either.
Now if we're defining authority as who has the loudest voice online, Twitter should not be the sole definition. With the different platforms Leo Laporte is producing content on, he has not just a loud voice in tech but also multiple voices in tech. Some of his podcast listeners won't receive his radio show and vice versa. Twitter is just one platform among many as Identica as well as the TWiT Army (which Leo Laporte seems to hang out at more than on Twitter) are out there as alternatives.
While Loic Lemur has a neat post with an intriguing idea, I am going to say that the foundation is not laid for it completely. This is an R&D question. Until that is done, I don't think authority search should be instituted.
source(s):
KWIC, KWAC, KWOC are research tools DARPA created to index scientific works and thereby establish authority.
As for counts, those come from the Twitter follower counts leaderboard.
As for the library reference, I hold a Master of Science in Library Science degree from a duly-accredited institution. When I was actually working in libraries, I made authority records. My coursework focused on the various aspects of cataloging and authorities.
Leo is Leo and he is easily observed online. I participate in the Identica community in addition to Twitter.
KWIC, KWAC, KWOC are research tools DARPA created to index scientific works and thereby establish authority.
As for counts, those come from the Twitter follower counts leaderboard.
As for the library reference, I hold a Master of Science in Library Science degree from a duly-accredited institution. When I was actually working in libraries, I made authority records. My coursework focused on the various aspects of cataloging and authorities.
Leo is Leo and he is easily observed online. I participate in the Identica community in addition to Twitter.
| Asker's rating: |
Yes and no. Yes, because like he said, we are not all equal on Twitter whether we like it or not. But no, because the average joe schmoe can create just as good content (tweets) than somebody with authority on certain topics.
always that binarial vision of the world: those who are followed (leaders? of what? THE opinion?) and the followers (the OTHERS)!
I love you @loiclemeur, but hey, I don't want my "what are you thinking/doing status" not to be seen, just because I have 280 followers. I might have smth interesting to share with some people... : )
I love you @loiclemeur, but hey, I don't want my "what are you thinking/doing status" not to be seen, just because I have 280 followers. I might have smth interesting to share with some people... : )
source(s):
me and seesmic
me and seesmic
Yes. There should be a flag if the tweet is from either you, Scoble or Guy Kawasaki and delete all the other results from the search as noise. If no results are returned then the question is deemed to be 'unsolvable by human brains' Normal humans can then use a AdWords type interface to pay for our tweets to appear for searches.
source(s):
the bible
the bible
I absolutely disagree with this. There is no link at all between the quality of information and the number of followers.
Loic actually even gave an example for this in Loic's blog post. Why was the same information by him and Ben any different? Sprint responded to Loic since they got more "marketing value" by getting back to him instead of Ben, which is a shame!
Again, as with many other thing in life, quantity is not always quality! This is more then everything true for the number of followers! What matters is how relevant the information is in regards to your interests, and you can influence this directly by who you follow! As such a search which prefers people that I follow over others is more then enough.
Loic actually even gave an example for this in Loic's blog post. Why was the same information by him and Ben any different? Sprint responded to Loic since they got more "marketing value" by getting back to him instead of Ben, which is a shame!
Again, as with many other thing in life, quantity is not always quality! This is more then everything true for the number of followers! What matters is how relevant the information is in regards to your interests, and you can influence this directly by who you follow! As such a search which prefers people that I follow over others is more then enough.
source(s):
Myself, loiclemeur.com
Myself, loiclemeur.com
There is an entire business opportunity in this question. The opportunity is creating a formula using data available on the Internet which can calculate Authority. Popularity, is not authority.
maybe this sort of stuff is best left to 3rd parties via the xmpp firehose. Maybe create a twittermeme app ?
Like it or not, it's true that people with more followers are paid more attention to.
People who don't have interesting things to tweet don't get many followers.
It's survival of the fittest (or, most interesting), people!
Moving forward with authority searching would be a catalyst in separating the interesting from the boring. Don't like it? Learn to be more interesting!
Authoritative searching would create incentive for people to expand their horizons and become more interesting.
I think the answer is YES, let's move forward, authority search should be implemented.
If anything, I think some sort of distinction should be made to separate business from personal - let's face it, no matter how interesting you may be, it's gonna be hard to get even close to Leo's 68,807 followers! So I would vote to add an attribute to everyone's Twitter account - commercial (y/n).
People who don't have interesting things to tweet don't get many followers.
It's survival of the fittest (or, most interesting), people!
Moving forward with authority searching would be a catalyst in separating the interesting from the boring. Don't like it? Learn to be more interesting!
Authoritative searching would create incentive for people to expand their horizons and become more interesting.
I think the answer is YES, let's move forward, authority search should be implemented.
If anything, I think some sort of distinction should be made to separate business from personal - let's face it, no matter how interesting you may be, it's gonna be hard to get even close to Leo's 68,807 followers! So I would vote to add an attribute to everyone's Twitter account - commercial (y/n).
The answer is yes.
But not because people with more followers are necessarily more 'authoritative'.
It's because there should be a search result sort based on popularity. It is definitely of interest what highly-followed people are saying, and you should absolutely be able to sort based on this. By definition, highly-followed people are 'of interest', so it naturally follows that there is an implied demand for this feature. So I say: Light it up!
It probably should not be called 'authority', but rather 'popular' or something along those lines, as that is the most accurate thing you can say about this particular sort.
But not because people with more followers are necessarily more 'authoritative'.
It's because there should be a search result sort based on popularity. It is definitely of interest what highly-followed people are saying, and you should absolutely be able to sort based on this. By definition, highly-followed people are 'of interest', so it naturally follows that there is an implied demand for this feature. So I say: Light it up!
It probably should not be called 'authority', but rather 'popular' or something along those lines, as that is the most accurate thing you can say about this particular sort.
Stowe Boyd just posted an interesting article where he says much the same thing -- but has some interesting ideas on how to do 'authority' correctly.
http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/12/authority-is-a.html
http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/12/authority-is-a.html
Related questions
140 characters left
ask any question
