Since its launch last night, iTwote.com has received great attention and response (mostly positive). I think it would be a good idea to explain some of the underlying ideas behind it.
First a recap of the process:
We are out to find who the most popular Twitter user in India is. Mostly because we think the value a user provides to his followers (fun, information, news, whatever) can't be measured by looking at the number of tweets they have made or the number of followers they have.
We thought the most logical way of finding that out was through a vote in which users come out and actually say who they like best.
So we set up a process like this:
Those interested in participating in the poll must first follow @itwote on Twitter.
Then you must tweet your nomination. If (for reasons known only to yourself) you wanted to vote for me (@vimoh), you will tweet:
@itwote #twitterguru @vimohThe more such nominations a user receives, the more points he/she builds up till the day of the nomination counting. The nomination process is open till November 12, 2008.
A few points to remember though:
- You can only nominate one person.
- If you nominated for someone and then changed your mind, you can nominate again. Only your last nomination will count as valid.
- Your nominated twitter user must be from India.
- You cannot nominate yourself (Sorry, but we have to mention this).
Some users have raised questions and objections to the idea. I will try and answer some of the recurring doubts here.
I think it is a pointless exercise and proves nothing.
Ans: Perhaps you are right. But then you have to wonder if any kind of voting counts as anything. There are always those who don't vote and those whose votes end up invalid. That doesn't mean the fault is in the process.
What's with the seven day nomination period?
Ans: Some users don't on a daily basis and might miss out on the updates. In any case, Twitter is just too noisy a place for a message to come across without potentially being lost among other messages first. The week-long nomination period will help more users take note of the contest and will hopefully invite more involvement.
How come you are allowing nominations to be changed? Serious elections don't work that way.
Ans: We understand that. But please note that real elections don't allow regular folks to nominate candidates on as immediate a level as we are doing.
Also, real elections are preceded by issues that need solving. Candidates step forward to solve them. People hear their proposals out and make their choice.
Hear we are only looking to find who people like most (for whatever reasons). There is a great difference!
But then what's the point behind this? Why do this at all?
Short answer: Because we want to.
Long answer: I see iTwote.com as a social experiment. Blogs don't come with an audience attached, Twitter (potentially) does. If you have something to say, it won't take you long to find yourself in the middle of a community that wants to hear exactly what you have to say.
It is not just the physical format that separates Twitter from other platforms. I have gotten a lot of people to start blogs. But they quit soon ("nobody comments on my blog") in the absence of connection. A big part of the Twitter experience is to connect and converse.
We think it is a good idea to harness the conversations and harvest opinions out of them to gain (however blurry) a picture of things. TwitterGuru is merely our first baby experiment to test this system. What we can do with it in the future, I leave to your imagination.
And this conversation is not over. I invite comments, complaints, abuses (umm... maybe not), and suggestions. The comment form is open.
