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The Most Public Index

by mtippett | July 20, 2008 at 07:19 pm | 13069 views | 18 comments | 9 recommendations

This is The MostPublic Index, a detailed barometer of the most public news influencers of today’s digital world. It illustrates how a new breed of influencer is shaping the media environment and what’s heard by the general population. Today, news makers and reporters are increasingly indistinguishable. In fact, a teenage Twitterer may have as powerful a voice as the New York Times editorial board. Therefore, NowPublic has defined this new type as a “news influencer.” The first MostPublic Index identifies the 50 most influential individuals in New York.

“Visibility and connectedness define today’s elite,” said Leonard Brody, CEO of NowPublic. “Today, there are innumerable new ways for one’s voice to be heard. The goal of the MostPublic Index is to measure who is currently most effective in broadcasting their own personal brand online, as well as identify emerging players.”

“Our ‘MostPublic Index’ is a leading indicator and benchmark of who is really changing the way in which news is being produced and distributed, a core goal of NowPublic and its army of reporters.”

NowPublic created a formula to measure influence and “publicness” across four categories, including:

Online Visibility
Presence on User-Generated Content and Social Networking Sites
Interactivity and Accessibility
The “R” Factor: Presence on Microblogging Platforms (Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

NowPublic measured statistics in each of these categories from Facebook, Flickr, Google, Technorati, YouTube, and various other blogs and sites, to create a list of New York’s leading influencers. NowPublic then narrowed the list to 50 by analyzing and documenting individuals’ presence and popularity in each of these channels, applying a weighted scoring system, determined by the strength of specific traits held in each online community.

Without further ado, NowPublic proudly presents the MostPublic individuals in New York:

Fred Wilson

Arianna Huffington

Sarah Austin

Steve Rubel

Noah Brier

Anil Dash

Gary Vaynerchuk

Jeff Jarvis

Liza Sabater

Loren Feldman

Paul Allison

Tamar Weinberg

Alex Blagg

Greg Verdino

Jason Kottke

Rex Sorgatz

Alisa Leonard

Brian Morrissey

Eric Friedman

Jeffrey Zeldman

Natali Del Conte

Tim Shey

Kyle Bunch

Anthony Volodkin

John Hodgman

Nancy Scola

Jay Rosen

Jen Simmons

John Biggs

Jake Dobkin

Caroline McCarthy

Lindsay Robertson

Lockhart Steele

Nick Denton

Scott Kidder

Kelly Reeves

Rachel Sklar

Peter Kafka

Jill Fehrenbacher

Peter Rojas

Robert Lanham

Jen Chung

Meghan Asha

Amy Langfield

Josh Levy

Allison Mooney

Nicholas Carlson

Laurel Touby

Emily Gould

Brian Stelter

The MostPublic Index will issue periodic indexes across a variety of categories, including the MostPublic: American cities; European cities; Asian Cities; Indian Cities; musical influencers; political influencers, pop culture influencers and sports influencers, among others. The next MostPublic Index will identify the 50 most public individuals in Silicon Valley.

The Index is calculated using the following formula:

1. How visible is the individual?

How many Google search results does the individual garner?

Under 20,000: 1 Point
20,000-49,999: 2 Points
50,000-99,999: 3 Points
100,00-599,999: 4 Points
600,000- 999,999: 5 Points
1,000,000 and above: 6 Points

Where does the individual rank on Technorati?

Ranked 1,000,000 or over: 1 Point
Ranked 500,000- 999,999: 2 Points
Ranked 100,000- 499,999: 3 Points
Ranked 10,000- 99,999: 4 Points
Ranked 1,000- 9,999: 5 Points
Ranked 100-999: 6 Points
Ranked Under 100: 7 Points

2. How present is the individual in user-generated sites?

How many search results does the individual garner on YouTube?

1 to 19 videos: 1 Point
20 to 49 videos: 2 Points
50 to 99 videos: 3 Points
100-199 videos: 4 Points
200 videos and above: 5 Points

How active is the individual on Facebook?

Does the individual have a profile? 2 Points

How many Facebook friends does the individual have?

Under 150 Friends: 1 Point
150-349 Friends: 2 Points
350- 499 Friends: 3 Points
500 Friends and above: 4 Points

3. Does the individual participate in micro-blogging?

How many microblogging tools does the individual use (tumblr, flickr)? 3 Points Each

Twitter: 5 Points

Number of Twitter Updates:

100-300: 1 Point
300-1,000: 2 Points
1,000-2,500: 3 Points
2,500+: 4 Points

Number of Twitter Followers:

100-300:            1 Point

300-1,000:         2 Points

1,000-2,500:      3 Points

2,500+:             4 Points

4. How interactive/accessible is the individual?

Does the individual offer a message board? 2 Points
Does the individual offer their email address or a contact form? 2 Points
Does the individual respond to readerposts or participate in online chat? 2 Points

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Paschen

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:52 on July 18th, 2008

mtippett, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Great news!!

mtippett

at 11:57 on July 18th, 2008

If you like it now you'll love it when it actually has content :)

politisite

at 18:09 on July 18th, 2008

This reminds me of the, "are your listening campaign" everyone was talking about it... what does it mean? have your head that commerical that jsut says, "are your lstening"? Mike have you been reading early radio commerical gimmicks?

nukemdomis

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 03:46 on July 21st, 2008

This is really amazing. Looking forward to more of these indexes.

michael gray (not verified)

at 05:51 on July 21st, 2008

what you discriminate against long island ppl or something? I doubt I could possibly be online any more present online than I currently am

michael lamb (not verified)

at 06:27 on July 21st, 2008

Megan Asha? Just lost all credibility with me when saw that.

kate

at 06:36 on July 21st, 2008

I think it's an interesting idea to graph influence this way - people are always reflecting on the changing dynamic of influence, but this is about indexing it. Great concept!

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira (not verified)

at 10:12 on July 21st, 2008

Considering that Gary Vaynerchuk has been on how many network television programs and he's rated below web-only personalities? I think the data is flawed. I'm more than willing to bet there are more New Yorkers who know "the wine guy from Ellen" than know a VC with a blog.

anonymous450 (not verified)

at 10:12 on July 21st, 2008

LOL - what a list - this might be the worst list of influential people in nyc ever.

Andrew Graham (not verified)

at 13:29 on July 21st, 2008

This info has got to be useful for something. Methodology seems to weigh Twitter heavily, and I think that's fine.

Other commenters: Read the bloody methodology. This is a list of digital influencers, not who has been on television the most. And yes, it does exclude places that aren't NYC, including Long Island.

mtippett

at 15:05 on July 21st, 2008

According to a math professor at Columbia:

"NowPublic's methodology for compiling its index isn't that statistically sophisticated, but the rankings are "legitimate" as the company defines its sample, says Alan Spector, a mathematician at Columbia University. Still, measuring a person's "influence," even as a function of how often someone's name shows up on the Web, is tricky since influence is difficult to define, let alone gauge. In other words, a lesser known person might have relatively few online followers, yet still carry great weight among other digerati, although the company seeks to address that by qualifying its index as focusing on people in the public eye."

source: The Deal

Mike Cunningham (not verified)

at 23:41 on July 21st, 2008

Seems Twiiter might not be in your criteria.

If it were, then surely Deborah Cole Micek would be on your list.

www.twitter.com/CoachDeb

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Mike

http://twitter.com/mike1mb

andrew foote (not verified)

at 09:35 on July 22nd, 2008

Mike - this is an NYC influencer list. Coach Deb lives in Hawaii / Las Vegas I believe.

Thoughtbasket (not verified)

at 15:16 on July 22nd, 2008

Interesting, but isn't this a sort of closed universe? Popular bloggers as listed by a blogging group using blogging tools to measure blogpower?

www.thoughtbasket.com

seeminglee

at 17:21 on July 22nd, 2008

Great article--but how are you aggregating your users + how do they score according to your system? I'm sure that we'd all like to compare your results with our own--well at least I do!

seeminglee

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 17:22 on July 22nd, 2008

mtippett, I like this story. It's good stuff.

kferaday

at 20:56 on July 22nd, 2008

Interesting approach. Have you automated this at all. How do you think this compares with a Buzzlogic etc. I've also thought it would be interesting to build a reputation score that would be sort of like your FICO score but would take into account data in addition to your online presence. In some ways limiting the data to social networking may exclude some interesting parties.