The Hoopla Over Followers & "Authority"


By now you may have heard about the uproar caused by just the mere mention that Twitter might one day offer something called "authority-based" filtering to its search function. The idea is that users would be able to sift through search results based on how many followers a fellow twitterer has. For the record, Twitter hasn't officially said it is planning any such thing. But since Loic Le Meur and Michael Arrington are calling for Twitter to add such filtering, everyone feels the need to take sides anyway. See the TechCrunch article HERE.

Social media types who are for the filtered search say it would offer an opportunity to separate the wheat from the chaff, as it were, since the tweets of those with more followers hold more weight than those of twitterers who are whistling in the wind. But those who are against the search-by-numbers, like Dave Fleet, say it would detract from the real value of Twitter because numbers don't always tell the whole story.

What do you guys think? Would you like to see Twitter adopt an authority-based search? Would you use it if it were offered as an option? Is it too much like Technorati?






Image courtesy of TechCrunch

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is an authority-based search it's called twitority... It's a little slow; however it works great!

http://twitority.com/

@scottwilliams

Anonymous said...

i think it's terrible - searches, information and data should be valid, not popular. Hitler was popular, remember? Oh yea, so was Bush after 911. I'm just saying.

Anonymous said...

i use search.twitter now more than google and i follow topics more so than followers so this would be a downside to me. i love the wide open tweets and opportunity to converse with the nobodies.

Harlem Loves said...

I'd say no to it as we it completely ignores new and interesting people who might appear over old established ones

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