I’ve been tracking FollowFriday for a while now and using justSignal to power FollowFridays.com – and today it really, really looked like FollowFriday had jumped the shark.

Here’s the thing. If you compose your FollowFriday tweets like:

#followfriday @joe @mary @steve @beth

You really aren’t adding any value to FollowFriday – as a matter of fact I’d argue you are just creating noise. Here is why. The simple reality is that I only follow about 10 or 15 people who I know well enough, trust enough, and have enough of a complete relationship that I would simply follow someone they told me to. And odds are I’ve been following those people for some time now and follow nearly everyone they would recommend.

So your @username missle for FollowFriday has no effect on me. I’m not following them… my guess is very few others will either.

But, if you compose your FollowFriday tweet like:

#followfriday Follow @micah because he came up with this and @strebel because he has mad design skills

I can determine if I want to follow those people based on WHY you follow them… not just because you said so. Even more powerful is the ability to head over to FollowFridays.com and enter a filter on the Tweet Stream (click on “filter this content”) for “cool” or “design” or whatever it is you are looking for and see JUST the FollowFriday Tweets with that word in them.

Today, based on what I was seeing and hearing it appeared that the majority of the tweets for FollowFriday looked like the first example. If that were the case – I’d have to say FollowFriday had outlived it’s usefulness.

Conveniently – because we us justSignal to track FollowFriday – we have access to each and every tweet sent about FollowFriday. So I decided to rely on data… and here it is:

NOTE: Tweets of Value is defined as any tweet that does not contain all @names and hash tags. Raw hour by hour data posted after the jump.

As you can see – while a significant number of the tweets (about 20% overall) were just hash tags and @names the vast majority actually contained useful words (hopefully) describing why we should follow the people being recommended.

I’ll grant you that we did not perform any kind of semantic analysis on these tweets trying to determine intent to state why someone should be followed, but I’m still pleasantly surprised that a consistent 80% of the tweets were not all @names and hash tags.

Make sure you tell everyone – only do FollowFriday recommendations with reasons… it is much more effective and keeps FollowFriday valuable.

One other thing I’ll take a moment to mention (shameless plug) – How cool is it that you can think of something interesting to discover from Social Media data and immediately be able to go answer that question? That is part of the power of justSignal… check it out.

Raw Hour by Hour Data:

Hour: 0
There were 812 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 2962 tweets that contained actual words.
78.4843667197 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 1
There were 843 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 3050 tweets that contained actual words.
78.3457487799 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 2
There were 824 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 3327 tweets that contained actual words.
80.1493615996 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 3
There were 918 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 3962 tweets that contained actual words.
81.1885245902 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 4
There were 1385 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 5753 tweets that contained actual words.
80.596805828 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 5
There were 1939 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 7805 tweets that contained actual words.
80.1005747126 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 6
There were 2536 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 11982 tweets that contained actual words.
82.5320292051 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 7
There were 2874 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 14391 tweets that contained actual words.
83.3536055604 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 8
There were 2714 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 14701 tweets that contained actual words.
84.415733563 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 9
There were 2394 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 13266 tweets that contained actual words.
84.7126436782 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 10
There were 2322 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 13896 tweets that contained actual words.
85.6825749168 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Hour: 11
There were 1940 tweets that only contained hash tags or @ names.
There were 11279 tweets that contained actual words.
85.3241546259 of the tweets were valuable as recommendations.

Twitter made a change to how @ replies are handled yesterday and the response has been, well, loud. Essentially you used to be able to see @ replies to everyone you followed, even if you didn’t follow the sender. Under Twitter’s new rules you only get to see @ replies to people you follow IF you follow the sender.

To many this may seem like a trivial change, but to those who use Twitter to discover interesting people… it is a very big deal. There has been rampant speculation (ignited, near as I can tell, by this post from Jesse Stay of SocialToo) that this change “kills” Follow Friday.

I’m including my comment on Jesse’s post here:

Ok… just to clear this one up. I checked (as you know I use justSignal to track Follow Friday for http://followfridays.com).

I have every Follow Friday tweet from 4/13 – 5/13 (last 30 days). There are a total of 771,244 Tweets. Of those 220,166 BEGIN with @username. That is 28.5% of the Tweets.

So definitely NOT most… but a very significant percentage.

Also, we’ve added User Filters to justSignal on FollowFridays. What does that mean? You can filter the total Follow Friday Tweet Stream by what it is about people you want to discover. Want to find PR folks to follow… add a User Filter for PR…

Follow Friday is most certainly NOT dead.

The short version of my take on this is that there are much, much better ways to find interesting people to follow than to rely on the people you follow to tell you about them. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the power of recommendations, but I also believe in the power of context.

You see, my fictional Twitter Friend Joe is really, really into late 13th century birth control. I – for whatever it is worth – find his updates about walrus skin condoms entertaining. Beyond that Joe and I don’t have much in common. There is nothing atypical about this Twitter relationship… in fact, if I had to bet with my own money I would guess that 90% of Twitter relationships are pretty similar to this. So, Joe’s Follow Friday recommendations are only valuable to me in a very, very narrow window of my interests… so if I don’t see them all am I really missing anything?

What I really want is to see the recommendations from the 10% of the people I follow with whom I have a much broader affinity AND people recommending others because they are really smart about (CONTEXT). Whatever my context of interest happens to be right now.

That is why we’ve added User Filters to the justSignal Tracker on FollowFridays to allow you to filter the live Twitter Stream for your context, your 10%, or whatever else makes Follow Friday work for you. That is what we call – Getting Signal.

Multicasting & @ Replies:

UPDATE: 05/13/2009 @ 4:10PM Pacific Time

I blew it… the below examples misrepresent what the @ reply option did. I’m not going to redact it or change it… because:

1. I blew it… and that happens and is ok with me.
2. The example of Tweet distribution as it relates to a multicast system vs. a non-multicast system is still 100% relevant and correct.

END UPDATE

Biz made an update to the Twitter blog letting us know that the change to the @ reply system wasn’t really about user confusion – but a technical issue. This is a reason that actually makes sense. It makes sense for one simple reason – the “web” and Twitter were not built to efficiently implement multicasting. The problem with these @ replies is they create a burst of Tweet traffic… why?

If you create a normal Follow Friday tweet like:

#followfriday @joe @mary @steve @mike @larry @meg @biz @wally

That tweet will be sent to joe, mary, steve, mike, larry, meg, biz and wally. Let’s say each of them are followed by 400 people. And let’s say 60% of those people have “show me all replies to those I follow” checked.

This tweet will be sent 1,928 times:

• 8 – The original 8
• 240 – Joe’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Mary’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Steve’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Mike’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Larry’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Meg’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Biz’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 240 – Wally’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies

Now lets say we create the following Follow Friday tweet:

#followfriday @scoblizer @mashable @aplusk @oprah @cnnbrk

Again, let’s round things off and say each of these people are followed by 700,000 each and 60% have “show me all replies to those I follow” checked.

This tweet will be sent 2,100,005 times:

• 5 – The original 5
• 420,o0- – Scoble’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 420,000 – Mashable’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 420,000 – AplusK’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 420,000 – Oprah’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies
• 420,000 – CNNBRK’s followers who’ve checked show me all replies

YIKES!!! Now imagine that tweet getting re-tweeted a couple hundred times. This is both why Twitter (I’m speculating here but with a high degree of confidence) “edited” trending topics to exclude Follow Friday AND why the @ reply change was made.

Why Multicast Matters:

Today Twitter (because they don’t implement efficient multicasting and instead rely on publish/subscribe architectures) has to effectively send each of those 2,100,005 tweets serially, one at a time. This consumes massive amounts of computing resources.

Multicast would allow them to send it once to many destinations – thereby removing that bottleneck from their scalability and tweet processing systems.

Those of you who are familiar with large scale real-time communications systems (i.e., VoIP) will immediately recognize this problem – it was central to creating a large scale VoIP service platform in the late 1990′s. The VoIP community resolved it (not without much effort) and now a very small system can efficiently multicast hundreds of millions of status updates/changes per hour.

I totaly buy Twitter pulling @ replies due to technical issues – as exposed by Follow Friday combined with celebrity adoption and massive follower counts. But if you are going to be the real-time web backbone disabling useful things because they create too much load instead of implementing a more efficient architecture isn’t the right answer.

I’ve gone through another one of those spells where I just didn’t write anything here – and to say I’ve been busy isn’t enough – hell I’m always busy.

I also can’t claim lack of interesting content – I could write six really compelling pieces on ASU Startup Weekend alone.

So we’ll just agree that my energy for writing posts took a bit of a vacation… but now I’m back.

Before I get back to my regular banality I need to get a bunch of housekeeping taken care of, so this post will catch you up on the justSignal updates, upgrades and new features.

Details after the jump…

Supported Services:

We’ve added Flickr support to our stable of Social Media services we collect from (Twitter, Google Blog Search and Backtype). I’m particularly excited about this addition because it allows you to add a visual element to your Signal. As always there is an accompanying widget which can be fully customized to meet the needs of your site.

Widget:

To get an idea of how all the Widgets can be deployed to create a compelling and interactive fan experience check out The UnOfficial Dbacks Tracker.

We plan to keep adding services as we go… so if you have any particular service you think would be particularly valuable drop me a note in the comments below.

Filtering:

Let’s be honest, the “filtering” provided by the services is ok… but not nearly as robust as it needs to be to really get Signal. More often than not you get a “rough tuning” which still contains considerable noise. I recognize that, and because of that we’ve added our Exclusion Engine.

The Exclusion Engine allows you to exclude items returned from the underlying services. In practical terms, you can create an overly broad filter for your Tracker, and then use the Exclusion Engine to “throw out” items that you don’t want.

For Example: You want to find information about Cobras (you know, snakes), but when you create a filter using the word “cobra” you get back everything – COBRA (health care), cobra (GI Joe), Shelby Cobra (car), Cobra Starship. To get down to just the Signal, you use the Exclusion Engine to define two sets of rules, Must Includes and Must NOT Includes.

Must Includes are words that tell you that you want this content – in our example, “snake”.

Must NOT Includes are words that tell you that you do not want this content – in our example, “ford, starship, GI Joe, health care, …”.

Each of these rules can contain a large number of keywords/phrases – allowing you to really fine tune your Signal.

Content Control:

Social Media gives people a megaphone – and they get to use that megaphone however they want. That does not mean you want to put everything they say on your site – after all, what you allow (and don’t) says a lot about you.

We’ve also all learned the lesson from Skittles and other brands who’ve hacked together some solution which puts social media on their site, only to see the usual school-yard pranks involving every offensive word possible.

We can do better – and we are. We’ve implemented a Dirty Word Filter which you can enable or disable at your discretion. This filter does not suppress the content, it simply replaces a list of offensive terms with (censor).

The content is saved in it’s raw (pun intended) form, we just allow you to not display offensive language. Here is a screen shot:

As always you can click through to see the original content on the service un-censored.

Twitter Widget

I kind of gave it away in the screenshot above, but we’ve also updated the Twitter Widget display photos from TwitPic and YFrog in the widget. User’s no longer have to click through to see the picture – it is displayed directly in your widget.

The Portal

We’ve also implemented (at long last) the Tracker Admin Portal. The portal contains all the tools you need to modify your filter, add or change Exclusion Engine terms, and enable or disable the Dirty Word Filter.

Additionally, it provides you control of each of the underlying services – which you can activate or deactivate.

This is probably my favorite upgrade we’ve done. It – along with our customization mechanisms – gives you complete control over your Tracker from day one. You can see your embed source, provide custom CSS for the iPhone page, and change your hash tag.

Signalytics

This will get a whole post to itself very soon. Signalytics.org will be the site for our Open Source project providing Analytics Tools based on the justSignal Tracker Data. As you know, I believe the data should be free (free as in liberty not beer). You pay us for the Tracker service – so you should be able to get the data we collect and do with it what you like.

Already have a Business Intelligence Vendor/Team? Great – take the data and find what interests you.

We realize we could charge you for custom reports, or Professional Services to extract what you want to know from the data we collect – but that isn’t the business I want to be in. There are hundreds of thousands of Analytics contractors, consultants, and vendors out there who are experts in Analytics. Use them.

I know some “Social Media Experts” will tell you that your analitics vendor has to “understand social media” (whatever that means) as if Social Media were somehow so special that you have to be one of US to derive any value from it. I’m calling bullshit. But that is the topic for the Signalytics post you’ll see shortly.

Until then…

No one is a bigger fan of real-time than I am. I’ve been working on real-time communications for 10 years, and I intend to continue to work in that space for the foreseeable future. That being said, let me be clear about one thing: There are practical limitations on real-time.

FriendFeed launched their new UI today in beta (check it out here). I am a huge fan of FriendFeed – and have been for a while now. They are doing more to advance the real-time web and social aggregation than any other service. But…

The new user interface (UI) leaves me with a single takeaway. This beta clearly demonstrates the practical limitations of real-time. If we begin with the end in mind, and clearly say that real-time exists as an enabler of:

1. Communication
2. Information Discovery

we quickly see that at some point real-time becomes a barrier to both.

New FriendFeed User Interface

I follow roughly 400 people on FriendFeed – which isn’t a particularly big number – and with the new full real-time user interface both communication and information discovery become all but impossible.

People are going to tell you “you’ll get used to it” – I actually saw one user compare it to flying a plane – information overload at first, but once you do it a while it starts to become less overwhelming. That may be true, but communication and information discovery shouldn’t be like flying a plane; which is a decidedly life or death experience. It should be streamlined and optimized to take advantage of the limited attention of the user. As importantly it should allow the user to take control of the experience and allocate their attention as they see fit – dynamically – as their attention allows.

And this is exactly where the new FriendFeed user interface breaks down. It requires 100% of you attention, 100% of your mental cycles – and it is still almost impossible to actually accomplish your goal; communication or information discovery.

FriendFeed has the building blocks in place to better manage your limited attention, but they are tangential to the central user experience and lack critical features. Filters and lists can solve the problem of limited attention, but they must be at least as functional as the current user interface – including the ability to post and follow the information in real time.

This puts the user in control of how they allocate their scarce attention – too much to pay attention to, tighten up the filter – not enough action, broaden the filter and get more.

At justSignal we are solving these problems as a platform for other companies, brands, or organizations to leverage in their content. FriendFeed needs to keep their eye on the ball, because they are solving it (IMHO) for the individual consumer.

The “ball” is enabling communcation and information discovery… that should be getting 100% of our attention.

We had a list of items we wanted improved and added to the justSignal Twitter real-time widget. And since I have no ability to procrastinate we are launching those changes over the weekend. Here is a rundown of the changes:

• Allow for variable length hash tags to be inserted in the tweets (used to be fixed at 6 characters).
• @names are now links.
• Added HTML elements for easier customization via CSS.
• Delete old tweets when there are more than 350 in the widget.
• Added date on tweet time.
• Added “logged in as” and a Logout button.
• Added the ability to re-tweet directly from the tweet (no copy and paste, just click on RT).

Re-Tweets are a big deal. So is the capping of the number of tweets in the widget (prevents memory issues). I’m also pretty happy about the improved HTML which will allow you to customize nearly every aspect of the widget via CSS (thanks to Josh Strebel for his guidance here).

For those of you who need to see it now… here is a screen shot of the base widget (not customized).

justSignal Twitter real-time Widget

We still have much, much more up our sleeve(s)… so stay tuned.

I’ve been awfully quiet for the last week or so. And there is a reason for that.
I’ve been busily working away to fulfill the vision of justSignal. It was never about (just) Twitter – it was about finding your signal wherever someone chooses to talk about it.

We launched with Twitter and the real-time widget because – frankly – Twitter has the buzz factor and because real-time is compelling. Today we are expanding beyond Twitter and the real-time, with the addition of Backtype (blog comments) and Google Blog Search. These new widgets will be added to the standard justSignal Tracker offering – with no increase in price.

These widgets have all the capabilities of the Twitter Real-Time widget:

• Auto Updating when new data arrives
• Fully customizable for your site via CSS
• Dynamic search/filter terms that can be changed at any time
• Embeddable in any site/HTML

Google Blog Search Widget:
Backtype Blog Search Widget:

But wait there’s more!!! And it isn’t a shamwow.

We’ve also added a search widget. The search widget searches within the Tweets we’ve collected based on your filter. The more (default is 2 hours – with options up to 90 days) history you keep the more useful this search becomes. To demonstrate this search capability we’ve launched Great On Twitter. Great on Twitter collects everything said on Twitter when someone thinks something is great, shows those tweets in real time and allows you to search for things that interest you.

For fun try searching for iPhone (note the number of matching tweets), then search for Blackberry. Another fun example is TweetDeck/Twhirl.

We aren’t done… not even close. So stay tuned for more updates.

Well this appears to be my new Saturday morning ritual. Pulling together data from Follow Friday for your viewing pleasure.

I want to thank Mashable and Micah for the post on Mashable yesterday featuring a screenshot of the justSignal Follow Friday Tracker.

Well lets get on with it, shall we?

There were a total of 43,481 Tweets (midnight to midnight Pacific Time).

Here is a chart showing the number of Tweets per hour (again time is Pacific).

The peak hour was 9-10am Pacific with 4,450 Tweets.

Perhaps my favorite fact from this week. 43,728 unique Twitter users were recommended.

Starting next week I’ll be providing week over week trending data… which should be really interesting. Since my data for last week is incomplete we really can not judge growth, but my best guess is that the Tweet volume about doubled.

For specifics about which users received how many recommendations and from who, head over to TopFollowFriday.

Two more things this week. First, I’m making the entire days worth of data available via an XML file. You can download it here. Be warned, it is a 22MB file. The format is described here.

Second, Jeremiah Owyang thought (and I agreed) that Mashable got many of their Follow Friday recommendations via the Re-Tweet of the post Micah wrote. Turns out (near as I can tell based on my analysis of the data) – not so. There were only 65 Re-Tweets for Mashable which would have been counted for Follow Friday.

After the jump you can see those tweets for yourself.

There were a total of: 65 @Mashable Re-Tweets

lucidmarcus: RT: @mashable “It’s #followfriday again! As always, here’s how Follow Friday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c”

Friday February 27th @ 11:12:08 am

rolandinsh_live: On Facebook: Rolands #followfriday top – http://cli.gs/fridaytop (via @mashable ). http://snipurl.com/d9qrg

Friday March 6th @ 11:50:43 am

prajish: RT: @mashable: It’s #followfriday! The usual reminder of how #followfriday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c

Friday March 6th @ 8:04:08 am

johnytyh: RT: @mashable: It’s #followfriday! The usual reminder of how #followfriday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c

Friday March 6th @ 8:00:33 am

fanshen: It’s #followfriday! The usual reminder of how #followfriday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 8:12:08 am

roguemovement: @Reluctantmelody RT: @mashable It’s #followfriday! The usual reminder of how #followfriday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c

Friday March 6th @ 8:26:28 am

CatalinaLoves: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:20:41 am

AgingBackwards: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:08:15 am

DormNoise: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:07:59 am

jessekorzan: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:08:23 am

rasfincher: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:09:06 am

bobstarrorg: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:10:16 am

JackieZima: RT @AgingBackwards RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:10:01 am

steelydaniel: RT @AgingBackwards: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:10:31 am

mumdee: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:11:05 am

ChefJerseyGirl: RT @AgingBackwards: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:12:02 am

prajish: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:12:57 am

willieljackson: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:12:47 am

Denrael: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:14:28 am

bilalnaseer: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:20:10 am

philiplei: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:21:47 am

thecx: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:26:48 am

HisButterfly: RT from @CatalinaLoves RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 9:29:11 am

tweetmeme: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/ (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 9:44:29 am

thebook: How #followfriday has taken over Twitter. http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/ via @mashable

Friday March 6th @ 9:48:47 am

socialdave: RT @thebook: How #followfriday has taken over Twitter. http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/ via @mashable

Friday March 6th @ 9:50:48 am

khaled_ouanes: RT: @mashable: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 9:57:59 am

sohanley: RT: @mashable: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 9:59:04 am

jordanbrown: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/ (via @mashable)<~ very cool indeed

Friday March 6th @ 9:59:37 am

LidiaAnain: loved it! RT: @mashable Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 9:59:55 am

fowora: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/ (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 10:03:31 am

ry_hudson: RT: @mashable: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 10:04:13 am

page10: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 10:05:47 am

dannamokamba: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 10:05:46 am

khaled_ouanes: RT: @mashable: Even cooler way to track #followfriday recommendations: http://www.boxuk.com/followfriday/

Friday March 6th @ 10:08:08 am

OzarksRedCross: RT: @mashable Even cooler way to track #followfriday recommendations: http://www.boxuk.com/followfriday [We should help @redcross up list.]

Friday March 6th @ 10:09:10 am

karebear006: RT: @mashable: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 10:17:32 am

_caseyWatson: @wilbloodworth: RT @thebook: How #followfriday has taken over Twitter. http://mashable.com/2009/03… via @mashable

Friday March 6th @ 10:18:18 am

FreakinLu: RT: @mashable It’s #followfriday! The usual reminder of how #followfriday works: http://tinyurl.com/cz545c

Friday March 6th @ 10:19:16 am

huffpost: #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0 -mediabistro

Friday March 6th @ 10:20:40 am

mediabistro: #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0

Friday March 6th @ 10:20:40 am

brendachrist: RT @mediabistro #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0

Friday March 6th @ 10:21:17 am

LitChat: RT @mediabistro: #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0

Friday March 6th @ 10:22:39 am

kdsimms: RT @huffpost: #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0 -mediabistro

Friday March 6th @ 10:23:06 am

johnny_mac: RT @mediabistro: #followfriday: The anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://is.gd/m7A0

Friday March 6th @ 10:24:40 am

jsbachop1: follow friday tool – loved it! RT: @mashable Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations:… http://tumblr.com/xlt1e37cq

Friday March 6th @ 10:26:33 am

jeffrey: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend http://tinyurl.com/b3crrz (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 10:33:58 am

diapau: RT: @mashable Even cooler way to track #followfriday recommendations: http://www.boxuk.com/followfriday/

Friday March 6th @ 10:36:37 am

rvsk: RT: @mashable: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 10:39:38 am

GinaMChen: RT: @mashable via @ljthornton: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 10:45:43 am

JaxLicurse: RT @GinaMChen RT: @mashable via @ljthornton: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 10:47:08 am

rolandinsh: #followfriday top – http://cli.gs/fridaytop (via @mashable )

Friday March 6th @ 11:04:29 am

bgreen: RT @AgingBackwards: RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 11:15:44 am

dgcohen23: RT @jeffrey: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend http://tinyurl.com/b3crrz (via @mashable) by @micah

Friday March 6th @ 11:27:03 am

OleKnut: RT: @mashable via @ljthornton: #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA Spennende!

Friday March 6th @ 12:29:44 pm

mahadewa: RT @zaibatsu RT @mayhemstudios #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend http://plurl.me/3vz via @mashable

Friday March 6th @ 11:29:40 am

AJ_The_Man: RT: @mashable Even cooler way to track #followfriday recommendations: http://www.boxuk.com/follow…

Friday March 6th @ 11:31:13 am

AgingBackwards: RT: @mashable Even cooler way to track #followfriday recommendations: http://www.boxuk.com/followfriday/

Friday March 6th @ 11:46:14 am

xtinasf: RT: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/ (via @mashable) ..guess who is on top??.

Friday March 6th @ 11:49:16 am

gc_koupaki: RT: @mashable Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/

Friday March 6th @ 12:06:59 pm

tateblaze: RT: @MASHABLE #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA

Friday March 6th @ 12:46:58 pm

ValeriaL: This is a great post: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (via @mashable) http://mashable.com/2009/03/06/twitter-followfriday/

Friday March 6th @ 12:20:02 pm

wwwfergy: #followfriday & hashtags http://tinyurl.com/cz545c (via @mashable )

Friday March 6th @ 12:28:30 pm

applemacbookpro: RT @fowora: Cool way to track the top #followfriday recommendations: http://topfollowfriday.com/ (via @mashable)

Friday March 6th @ 1:59:07 pm

sheenamariebee: OK, got it now! RT: @mashable #followfriday: The Anatomy of a Twitter Trend (Please RT!) http://ping.fm/kKVuA. Thx @AgingBackwards!

Friday March 6th @ 2:10:01 pm

I was poking around in the data coming back from What is Great On Twitter – because, well I’m a geek and I love statistics. I looked at iPhone vs. Blackberry; Apple vs. Microsoft; and TweetDeck vs. Twhirl.

All very interesting, I assure you. But then I decided to see the buzz about Watchmen – and WOW. I’ll let the results speak for themselves:

There were a total of: 119 mentions of Watchmen on What is Great On Twitter

Tweets after the jump…

There were a total of: 119 mentions of Watchmen on What is Great On Twitter

jhorsley3: I just want to note that including the 12:01am premiere of WATCHMEN my local theater is playing it 14 TIMES TODAY. POULSBO FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 8:58:14 am

phogan: Won’t be seeing Watchmen until the monday afternoon matinee. Careers in journalism FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 9:12:26 am

jackomatik: @Emokilla Thumbs up. They did a great job with the characters, but The Big Plot Change was kind of weird. #Watchmen director’s cut DVD FTW?

Friday March 6th @ 9:20:58 am

jakeprospect: @becca_kay I don’t know why, but I get a big kick out of haiku’s. Watchmen was awesome. Dr. Manhattan is great, minus the constant nudity.

Friday March 6th @ 9:22:30 am

mr_chip: Ebert gives Watchmen a rave review! Big exhale, because uninitiated mainstream review love means it probably really is great.

Friday March 6th @ 9:37:31 am

cowboycraig: Looking forward to seeing the Watchmen! The reviews are great which is a plus.

Friday March 6th @ 9:53:10 am

nGenWorks: Jacksonville peeps, join the nGeneers at the 3pm showing of Watchmen at Tinseltown! nGen Friday FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 10:43:05 am

tonychester: Quick lunch with the Odub crew and it’s off to Watchmen — FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 10:49:52 am

igerard: @kevinrose amazing film. They left some stuff out but you had to think about it. Ending is great too. Better than original IMO #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 11:08:39 am

ZakMckrackin: dude its friday and watchmen is out. March Madness FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 11:08:53 am

Kirsten: RT @JasonCalacanis: Watchmen is great. it is intelligent, visually intriguing and more human than superhuman. it’s metafiction at its best.

Friday March 6th @ 11:10:52 am

Humanoide: Looking forward to Watchmen tonight. Comments are great so far. Never read it, but I’m sure I’ll like the movie.

Friday March 6th @ 11:12:28 am

crossetj: Waited too long to get #watchmen tickets! To hell with being social, I’m going by myself tomorrow night. IMAX FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 11:19:15 am

its_ash: The next 2 hrs & 45 min will be spent seeing Watchmen! FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 11:34:33 am

stylistisme: The WatchMen (Movie); Rorschach FTW.

Friday March 6th @ 11:36:42 am

akirazenx: @GothMunch watchmen FTW

Friday March 6th @ 11:36:45 am

salvemoscolari: Ah, e Malin Akerman FTW! #watchmenpt

Friday March 6th @ 11:38:18 am

FiZ: is desperately waiting for 6:15 “WATCHMEN in IMAX FTW“

Friday March 6th @ 11:47:16 am

Karepi: : Friday. Done with flame training! Watching the Watchmen FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 11:48:10 am

techgurus: JasonCalacanis: @kevinrose Watchmen is great. it is intelligent, visually intriguing and more human than superhu.. http://tinyurl.com/bpnymg

Friday March 6th @ 11:55:33 am

modernscience: RT @JasonCalacanis: Watchmen is great. it is intelligent, visually intriguing and more human than superhuman. it’s metafiction at its best.

Friday March 6th @ 11:57:24 am

ian3stax: Watchmen was awesome!!!!!

Friday March 6th @ 11:57:35 am

Kyprioth: @lartist That sucks, watchmen was awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 11:58:48 am

krakkentroll: Holy crap this is great: Watchmen, the 80′s cartoon intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDDHHrt6l4w

Friday March 6th @ 12:00:24 pm

Brad_Strickland: In Watchmen the attention to detail is awesome down to the Mac SE/30 on Veidt’s Desk. http://is.gd/m2Wh

Friday March 6th @ 12:01:21 pm

Takhiru: wow. Amazing movie, amazing night, but I’m insanely tired. The Watchmen FTW. <3 @___@

Friday March 6th @ 12:04:47 pm

Graysee: Watchmen was awesome. The first hour is a little slow, but it sets the stage for the rest of the movie. I like the extra story personally

Friday March 6th @ 12:06:05 pm

piratesmiles: Last tweet may not have made sense. Someone drew Watchmen related stuff all over campus. It was awesome. Twitter just didn’t get my text.

Friday March 6th @ 12:06:10 pm

exiledscorpion: @kevinrose Wish i was going to see Watchmen tonight, i’m going next week. The soundtrack is awesome though.

Friday March 6th @ 12:06:29 pm

MatthewKC: Watchmen was awesome, though not quite as good as the graphic novel. I liked Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian the best.

Friday March 6th @ 12:18:52 pm

nonpromqueen: Happy Friday! Today is #BSG day! Tomorrow? #Watchmen! BIG BLUE WANG FTW

Friday March 6th @ 12:20:33 pm

robotech_master: @clairefontain Watchmen was awesome. Don’t miss it on the big screen. Go IMAX if you can.

Friday March 6th @ 12:24:59 pm

mulatta: Oh wow. Fuck the haters, Watchmen was awesome. Long, but awesome. Aaawesome. I’m even talking like a surfer dude, ffs.

Friday March 6th @ 12:35:41 pm

ambulanceartist: Watchmen was awesome. Amazing fan service. Will see again for sure.

Friday March 6th @ 12:36:12 pm

pmhesse: Watchmen was good. Effects = wonderful. Acting = mostly good. (Rorschach was awesome.) Story = faithful to the book. What did y’all think?

Friday March 6th @ 12:36:13 pm

ricetopher: Who has today’s coolest Twitter avatar? Check out the Dr. Manhattan-ization of @cascio ‘s pic. Nice work, Jamais! #Watchmen FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 12:40:23 pm

dannyroddy: Watchmen was awesome. Loved it. #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 12:43:35 pm

25thhour: Watchmen … was … awesome!!

Friday March 6th @ 12:43:43 pm

RiceBunny: Watchmen was awesome!!!!!! Go see it. Read the graphic novel too!

Friday March 6th @ 12:44:52 pm

trickynumber7: @omgwtfftl we saw watchmen before @kevinrose and it was awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 12:45:37 pm

HBKV1K: just saw watchmen @ midnite it was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 12:47:28 pm

holy_guacamole: watchmen was awesome. staying out till 5…less awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 12:56:52 pm

Undeleterious: Best thing about Watchmen: the art. Worst thing: the soundtrack. The tracks are great but don’t feel right. Would prefer all instrumental.

Friday March 6th @ 12:57:32 pm

CigarFace: WATCHMEN @ 4:30 FTW!!!!!!!

Friday March 6th @ 12:57:52 pm

bmancreations: watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 12:58:12 pm

alittler: #watchmen Hf Blood Prince trailer is FTW

Friday March 6th @ 1:03:09 pm

JoshMonkey: Watchmen was awesome. Go see it, even if you have to sacrifice sleep to do so

Friday March 6th @ 1:05:41 pm

valos1479: Watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 1:06:00 pm

patrickgraves: My session was canceled so I went and saw “Watchmen”. It was awesome…..at parts. Terrible use of source music though. But thats minor.

Friday March 6th @ 1:08:25 pm

erinjoan: @RPMaus @UMNews Watchmen + Science is awesome. Here’s why: http://tinyurl.com/cjpw55

Friday March 6th @ 1:13:41 pm

Infneon: Who watches the Watchmen? I did and it was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 1:15:27 pm

deege: @DailyContempt The Watchmen is a movie. It is awesome but very long and dark.

Friday March 6th @ 1:16:22 pm

tenshi_nezumi: Watchmen was awesome! Working to close tonight.

Friday March 6th @ 1:17:18 pm

groggiero: watchmen was awesome. and the people who were at the premier were awesome. but im not sure about seeing a premier at midnight again…

Friday March 6th @ 1:17:43 pm

entcardoso: @steveisaacs I saw it yesterday, here in Brazil. It`s amazing! There`s some different things, but the movie is great. #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 1:22:33 pm

SatansPuppet: @Craig1980 not a clue never read #watchmen. Action was awesome but a lot of sex in their too!

Friday March 6th @ 1:24:32 pm

cobiegoesboom: given all the watchmen movie press, this is awesome: http://www.comicbookmovie.com/watchmen/news/?a=4366

Friday March 6th @ 1:24:42 pm

Kris_J: Dude…the world is out of balance…but at least Watchmen was awesome…

Friday March 6th @ 1:25:38 pm

coy0te: RT @SatansPuppet: @Craig1980 not a clue never read #watchmen.Action was awesome but a lot of sex in their too! .. Sounds like my kinda film!

Friday March 6th @ 1:26:15 pm

Klink: the movies gamble payed off a handfull of ppl in and watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 1:27:01 pm

ekerrimahon: just went to see Watchmen. It was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 1:28:56 pm

k_hamm: Watchmen is great.

Friday March 6th @ 1:29:16 pm

sammy_sunshine: Gonna watch WATCHMEN in like ten mins. Imax FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 1:32:44 pm

noonesgod: is back at the shop. Watchmen was awesome. You should see it.

Friday March 6th @ 1:36:52 pm

nlavin: So i saw Watchmen last night on IMAX – it was awesome but i had a few small problems. problem number 1 was… http://tumblr.com/xxy1e46at

Friday March 6th @ 1:42:50 pm

mikloud: Watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 1:44:15 pm

jamielee_n: @demonbaby Watchmen is awesome the graphics are just unbelivable was graphic but still. enjoy!

Friday March 6th @ 1:44:46 pm

coderigger: @xonassis I’m sitting between two librarians at my Watchmen screening – FTW!!!

Friday March 6th @ 1:45:13 pm

TheSl0th: So, my good buddy TraitorJack saw Watchmen last night. He says it was awesome! Anyone else see it? Let me know what you thought! No spoilers

Friday March 6th @ 1:45:53 pm

OrangeHoodie: watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 1:46:45 pm

cherriepanda: Holy jehovah! I had a mix up with ticket times, lady gave me money back + IMAX tix for Watchmen at noon….FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 1:46:55 pm

DaKool: has just returned from watching Watchmen pretty good movie im lying it was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 1:47:23 pm

underlow: Greetings from Vietnam! This is awesome: http://bit.ly/eRknD #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 1:49:29 pm

spiraken: as a movie fan watchmen was awesome. as a comic fan watchmen was very good. could it have been better… yes but i did enjoy it. 4.5 out …

Friday March 6th @ 1:54:25 pm

claudia_m: Watchmen was awesome!!! (but for purists only, I’ll admit) Haters can suck it!!!

Friday March 6th @ 1:54:53 pm

alexbuckingham: Watchmen was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 1:56:58 pm

Ktdata: @janetv Watchmen is awesome!!!

Friday March 6th @ 2:00:15 pm

cdgullo: Watchmen was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 2:00:27 pm

cromo_916: watchmen was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 2:02:15 pm

Disco_Stu: @sway you are correct, madam. Watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 2:02:55 pm

lsilverman: Ebert gave WATCHMEN 4 stars and mentioned IMAX http://tinyurl.com/chm2kp! I agree, WATCHMEN in IMAX is awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 2:11:55 pm

fmiller: Saw watchmen last night, it was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 2:18:58 pm

sbf717: OMG Watchmen was awesome. SO FUCKING AWESOME. Give me the mutherfucking Blu-ray soon Warner

Friday March 6th @ 2:20:15 pm

darrynvdwalt: Watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 2:21:29 pm

JNicole88: Watchmen was awesome! Still bummed they had trouble w/our imax so we had to watch the reg version. They gave us free imax tix to make up

Friday March 6th @ 2:21:35 pm

shishigami: Just in from seeing Watchmen. It was awesome .

Friday March 6th @ 2:21:38 pm

mrjonnypantz: Watchmen was awesome. Not sure how I liked the changed ending, but overall, loved the movie.

Friday March 6th @ 2:26:59 pm

boog7707: @Longbow1221 Yeah, I heard it was awesome. Watchmen, Star Trek, Wolverine, Gambit, Deadpool…good times for geek-vendors like me!!!

Friday March 6th @ 2:28:15 pm

petefic: @kevinrose it was awesome #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 2:31:39 pm

myrandakae: @kylebeats watchmen was awesome.

Friday March 6th @ 2:32:13 pm

draigwen: Watchmen was awesome. Driving back from Newport in the dark was scary.

Friday March 6th @ 2:34:19 pm

IamKorbenDallas: Watchmen was awesome

Friday March 6th @ 2:39:15 pm

Jumpluff96: Watchmen was awesome. Jizzed in pants. Fapfapfap.

Friday March 6th @ 2:42:08 pm

chickieleighc: @wyldkyss Yes, it was definitely ZOMG. ALso: one of my favorite parts was the MUSIC, to be honest. 99 Luftbaloons FTW! #watchmen

Friday March 6th @ 2:42:08 pm

patarick: I’m seeing a lot of twitter peeps saying #watchmen was awesome. Clearly they’ve never experienced the power of the novel.

Friday March 6th @ 2:43:53 pm

Amandarka: Is posting EVERYWHERE that i saw Watchmen… Why? Because i can. Plus it was awesome… Except for the losers behind me… They were loud.

Friday March 6th @ 2:45:13 pm

Choppin: @monkeyspoon Watchmen is better than all of those. Although Batman is awesome. I think Rhian would quite like Watchmen… maybe. No gayness.

Friday March 6th @ 2:45:47 pm

doug_graeme: watchmen at the IMAX FTW

Friday March 6th @ 2:47:01 pm

FelixDCat: Finished Watchmen. It followed the novel almost panel for panel. was awesome to see it come to life on the big screen.

Friday March 6th @ 2:48:30 pm

ramshaw: Watchmen was awesome a few minor plot points were changed for the better for film. One gripe was the soundtrack a bit hit or miss.

Friday March 6th @ 2:50:13 pm

thisISmike_yt: Finished watching Watchmen! It was awesome! Not sure what everyone was saying. Oh well.

Friday March 6th @ 2:50:33 pm

remoterecon: RT @kevinrose #watchmen is great. it is intelligent, visually intriguing and more human than superhuman. it’s metafiction at its best.

Friday March 6th @ 2:52:29 pm

vegansarah: watchmen was awesome, hooray to my mom for babysitting!!

Friday March 6th @ 2:57:42 pm

mathletelesley: Who Watches The Watchmen? The Watchmen movie was awesome!!!!

Friday March 6th @ 2:58:56 pm

the_jamie: The Watchmen was awesome!!! If you haven’t planned to see it, you’re wrong!

Friday March 6th @ 3:02:02 pm

iFester: Okay, caught up on the tweets, no surprise Phoenix hates Watchmen (that uncultured swine). Toy Story joke FTW! He’ll kick my ass in L4D L8R.

Friday March 6th @ 3:04:21 pm

Jason23z: @MsClovisEskimo Watchmen was awesome, a little to long but still good.

Friday March 6th @ 3:05:04 pm

Fabricate: Watchmen was okay, but this guy, this guy was awesome http://twitpic.com/1vwsg

Friday March 6th @ 3:09:51 pm

CarryBelle: Watchmen was awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 3:13:10 pm

adamrickett: Watchmen was awesome!! But wow was there a lot of blue penis in it.

Friday March 6th @ 3:13:17 pm

seandavis: #Watchmen was awesome. All the naysayers are just nitpicking.

Friday March 6th @ 3:22:27 pm

briantroy: New Blog post: I LOVE Statistics – What is great on Twitter? Apparently Watchmen… at http://tinyurl.com/crl3nc

Friday March 6th @ 3:23:05 pm

revii: @updance Lily, Julio just called me to meet in the park so I won’t be able to log in. ilyyy!!!!!! Hope Watchmen was awesome!!!!

Friday March 6th @ 3:23:24 pm

pishka: watchmen was awesome!! not as epic as the novel, but AWESOME nevertheless.

Friday March 6th @ 3:23:27 pm

erikblythe: @CallanH (RE: #Watchmen) Jonas Brothers in 3D FTW!

Friday March 6th @ 3:23:45 pm

patchrick: @angryearthling would be a good idea. Watchmen is great film

Friday March 6th @ 3:29:55 pm

johnjac: Leaving for diner the #WATCHMEN spoiler alert: I’m going to think it is awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 3:29:58 pm

Brammm: Watchmen was awesome!

Friday March 6th @ 3:33:15 pm

moth: @greeneant Watchmen was awesome. Highly recommended. I give it four and a half blood-spattered smiley faces.

Friday March 6th @ 3:34:47 pm

More than any other word “innovator” describes me best. I’m not saying I’m Steve Jobs – I’m just saying I’m constantly fascinated by new, interesting combinations of ideas that add value. This morning – as I watched the Follow Friday Tweets FLY by on the justSignal tracker I began to wonder…

Wouldn’t it be great if I could tap into everything people said was “great” on Twitter. justSignal to the rescue! Here is the justSignal Tracker seeking out everything people Tweet about because it is great.

(I’m not embedding the Tracker here for any number of reasons… but it will live at the link above).

There are three things that make this exceptionally interesting (to me – feel free to suggest your own in the comments).

1. These are 100% authentic – no gaming of the system. Just real people telling us what they think is “great”.
2. Watching the Real-Time Tracker is a great (sorry for the pun) way to discover things that you might think are great too.
3. Being able to collect all these tweets for analysis later is an amazingly rich source of information (mostly because of #1 above)

Just as an example, here is an 100% authentic endorsement of a car repair shop. I have no idea who the Drake Garage is… but @ljpalmer is clearly a fan. I don’t know about you, but I totally trust this endorsement. Why? Because it is a spontaneous, authentic utterance…

I’ll have some more announcements about this experiment over the next few days and weeks. This is a really interesting idea – and further illustrates my point that Twitter Search does not make Twitter a Search Engine. If, however, you can collect the relevant data (for your purpose) you can gain amazing insights.

Arrington is back. And he dropped a nice post today over at TechCrunch indicating that he believes it is time to start thinking of Twitter as a Search Engine. In general terms I agree… but as always the devil is in the details.

There is one major hole in Arrington’s theory, but that hole is HUGE. The fact is, Twitter Search isn’t a search engine. It is a simple keyword search which returns results in chronological order. That is very useful in some ways, but it negates every example Arrington cites in his post.

People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff.

Twitter knows it, too. They’re going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it’s extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable – somewhere around 40% of a ll online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today.

In reality FriendFeed’s search is much better positioned to execute a “search engine” strategy. Why? Because they have measures of relevance, authority, and rank via comments and likes. We know these things matter when people search – how? Because Google won the search engine battle – and by no small margin – and did so on the simple idea that the results have to be ranked by relevance (i.e., PageRank). Excite, Yahoo and a bevy of other search services completely missed the boat by failing to realize that in search the relevance of the returned information to the user’s question is everything. Without that there is no revenue from ads – because if the ads are not relevant they are worthless.

Can Twitter build a relevance engine into Twitter Search? Maybe, but execution is everything. And thus far Twitter’s execution has been lacking in almost every regard. More importantly, since every Tweet is indexed by Google and (potentially) pulled into FriendFeed – two companies who’s ability to consistently execute far exceeds Twitter’s – they will face immediate and stiff competition for those search dollars.

As importantly, for companies (and “brands” – for example, musicians, movie stars, etc) search isn’t nearly as interesting as being able to take the raw data and analyze it. For what? Whatever it is they want to know. I can not predict what Peter Himmelman will want to discover today (or next week) about what his fans say on Twitter – so why would I offer him a canned report that only tells him one or two things?

So, while search will matter to Twitter in terms of revenue generation (I’ve officially boycotted the term monetization – but that is a subject for another post) – I’m not as sure as Arrington is that it is the key to selling services to brands.

And I’m not just shooting my mouth off – I’m betting I’m right by using justSignal to set the data free. justSignal will collect Tweets and make that data available to our customers. Not in a fancy report that tells you something I think is important, but in raw XML format – allowing you to analyze the data for what is important to your business. Again – the value is in the Signal – and you are in a better position to determine what Signal you are looking for today (and I know it will be a different Signal tomorrow).