Klout, finding the most influential people on Twitter

How influential are you on twitter?

Flagged up by Robert Scoble of Scobelizer, the start-up Klout measures how influential people are on Twitter. And it doesn’t just go by how many followers you have. Klout looks at interactions – retweets, replies, listings and who makes those interactions (are the retweeters influential themselves?) and gradually builds up a power pyramid which can be worked out as an influence rating for any given user.

Flatteringly, it comes up with topics you are most influential on, and diagnoses you with one of 16 influencer types that they have worked out.

Klout hope eventually to be able to categorise each piece of content posted by each user.

Klout would just be ego-massage for the power-tweeters, but they’ve also worked out a way of making it into a useful service for anyone. If you register your Facebook account with them, they read your Interests section and can generate lists from people who

Of course if your Facebook interests are all comedy ones from 2006, then this will be less useful.

But think how good this service would be – it’s like automatic Twitter lists and a brilliant way of discovering great and interesting people on Twitter.

Even better – they’re looking at commercial tie-ins that would see people who are influential in certain areas getting rewarded by relevant brands. Twitterers who are influential about cameras could get linked up with Canon goodies, etc.

See more about the site, and find out how influential you are on Twitter here