An experimental site, www.twinfluencers.com created by Amnesia Razorfish launched ‘softly’ today. It takes a live look into “influencers” and what they are saying on Twitter as it happens.
www.twinfluencers.com monitors US and Australian Journalists, Twitterati and CEO’s
What does Twinfluencers do?
Twinfluencers is a dashboard showing live tweets from Twitter users considered to be influencers within specific groups (Journalists, CEOs and Twitterati). Currently we are breaking these out into Australia and US regions.
FAQs:
So what’s the point?
Whilst there are many tools which track trends, hashtags from the masses this tool takes another angle and provides a peek at live information being generated from these influencer groups. You can jump in at any time without needing to be a Twitter user. It also saves you having to follow and segment the 900(ish) people that Twinfluencers is watching!
Why did we build Twinfluencers?
Firstly, we love doing experiments – the point is we’re not 100% certain of ‘what comes next’. Secondly, we’re of the school of thought that if we’re going to become better at working in social media then “doing stuff” is the way to go. Building the tool may prove useful or useless, but the mere act of building it allowed us to learn some new things. We might yield some insight and analytics that become usable -that would be a bonus. Finally– we couldn’t find a tool that produced what we wanted to see so decided to do it ourselves (although half way through build we found a similar tool muckrack.com for US journos which is actually very good).
What might the site do in the future?
The lists will be keep being compiled and updated. We may add other countries if the demand is there. It would be nice to see some historical data, trends etc from these groups. There are a few minor UI tweaks to be made. We’ve already been asked to do a celebs version, although we specifically avoided celebrities in this round. Alternatively – if we learn nothing or find something better to do then maybe it will just fade away 
How many people are in the lists?
At time of writing, but being updated regularly at present;
Australian: Journalists (500) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30)
USA: Journalists (105) Twitterati (101) CEOs (30)
Where do the lists come from?
This was possibly one of the harder parts of the experiment and something we consider to be work in progress:
- Journalists: We received lots of help from Dave Earley (@earleyedition) in sourcing a very consolidated list of Australian Journalists. US Journalists came from a variety of public sources and some Razorfish US assistance – we also decided to limit the number down to about 100, compared with a much more expanded number of Australian Journalists.
- Twitterati: This was a slightly tougher list to quantify. In the end we based the list mainly by combining and filtering results from Grader, Retweetability index, Twinfluence, Twittercounter. We removed known ‘spammers’ or those using ‘follow agents’ to grow their count and occasionally factored in the start date of the account (earlier being better).
- CEOS: Various sources (some tips) including Laurel Papworth.
How can I get my hands on the full list of these groups?
Whilst we’re still in beta testing we’re not openly distributing. The plan is that if the site generates any ongoing interest we will open the lists up – initially to individuals who are willing to contribute to the ongoing maintenance of the lists, and then open to public. Please remember, keeping these lists up to date is quite a lot of hard work.
”How can I get on the list? ARrgh – I deserve to be there!”
Firstly – tweet something and wait a couple of minutes (there can be a delay before you see your tweet appear). Not there? Yes… We know how this works and of course there are people who should be on there who aren’t and vice versa. We’ll keep adding but we’re trying to make this less about the egos, more about a tool that offers some value that we can learn a little from. For those who believe they have been wronged (and we do not mean to wrong anyone) there are some instructions on the site at the bottom of the page to suggest follows, “but” we will apply the same filtering and vague scrutiny to try to keep a balance. 
They can draw! (well scribble) Of course they can write a years performance plan for the rest of the creatives’ in the company.
We recently rediscovered this game, and spent an obscene amount of time trying outdo each other creating the most poorly designed machines possible. It’s also available on the iPhone. Here are a few of our attempts:
