After mapping the best-networked DC Twitter technorati, I figured I’d try it out on an environment I’m not familiar with: Seattle.
The results
Here are the results of the best-networked Seattle tech Twitter users:
| Rank | Handle | Name | Relationships | Followers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ShaunaCausey | Shauna Causey | 867 | 25530 |
| 2 | moniguzman | Monica Guzman | 602 | 13516 |
| 3 | BillGates | Bill Gates | 564 | 2999410 |
| 4 | jennihogan | Jenni Hogan | 529 | 33243 |
| 5 | TheNewsChick | Linda Thomas | 527 | 15648 |
| 6 | KevinUrie | Kevin Urie | 524 | 3837 |
| 7 | briancrouch | Brian Crouch | 520 | 11354 |
| 8 | ChrisPirillo | Chris Pirillo | 492 | 96065 |
| 9 | jshuey | Jeff Shuey | 485 | 16870 |
| 10 | LilyJang | Lily Jang | 483 | 15718 |
| 11 | seattlewinegal | Barbara Evans | 467 | 12300 |
| 12 | Shih_Wei | Veronica Wei Sopher | 455 | 3670 |
| 13 | Ryanintheus | Ryan Hodgson | 440 | 2777 |
| 14 | JessEstrada | Jess Estrada | 433 | 4543 |
| 15 | BMW | Brian M. Westbrook | 429 | 7269 |
| 16 | ColinAC | Colin Christianson | 415 | 5505 |
| 17 | JenniferCabala | Jennifer Cabala | 404 | 3196 |
| 18 | johnhcook | John Cook | 403 | 5740 |
| 19 | thinkmaya | thinkmaya | 397 | 6218 |
Shauna Causey, who manages social media at Nordstrom, ranks the highest, by quite a margin over second-placed Monica Guzman, a tech journalist. Unsurprisingly, Bill Gates, perhaps the world’s foremost geek (and I use that approvingly), ranks highly in third. Two broadcast journalists, Jenni Hogan and Linda Thomas, follow-up in forth and fifth. Kevin Urie, founder of Social Media Club Seattle, ranks sixth.
Rounding out the top ten are: Brian Crouch (7th), social media manager for the Music Group; Chris Pirillo (8th), a social media strategist; Jeff Shuey (9th), board member of the Seattle Social Media Club; and, finally, Lily Jang (10th), a local TV anchor.
For the methodology and additional information, check out the post I did on my DC analysis.
A few notes
- This analysis mapped 1910 individual Twitter accounts, resulting in 4.2 1.4 million relationships to crunch. Interestingly, this is fewer accounts than the DC analysis (2700 accounts), but more than twice as many relationships (1.9 million) Check out the update below.
- There were more local journalists in my Seattle results, likely due to the wider network of relationships indexed as compared to the DC analysis. I debated removing these accounts to focus just on people self-identified as involved in the tech scene, but I didn’t want to adjust the results too much.
- There were a good number of “institutional” Twitter accounts that I filtered out. Check out the complete list of results to see how they scored.
- It’s interesting to see how well Kevin Urie was ranked. Despite having a relatively small following, he was very well connected within this network, no doubt through his work with the Seattle SMC.
- Oh, and why Seattle? My girlfriend is working there and can help validate the results.
Know the Seattle tech scene well? How do my results look to you? Anyone I missed?
UpdateFor some reason the app created multiple entries in the relationships database table, which quite inflated the numbers above. Since a “relationship” means someone within the network analyzed is following that account, you cannot have more followers than there were accounts analyzed. I should have noticed this when writing up the results (alas, late night hacking). This doesn’t change the ranking order much, though JenniferCabala and johnhcook did swap places in 17 and 18 (sorry John). Monica Guzman‘s follow-up questions brought the error to my attention!
I should also say that this is pretty experimental and involves hacking on nights and weekends. Nonetheless, it seemed to have worked well on the DC network.
Seattle skyline photograph by Bala
Good list but you missed me @sportstechieNET
Where’s @andruedwards?
Fascinating! Some great names up on that list. Surprised as well that @andruedwards nor myself @timothycarter made the list?
@Caprice and @Timothy: This method is pretty experimental, so it certainly is possible for it to miss important people. I checked the database and @TimothyCarter has 248 relationships while @AndruEdwards has 219. I’m not sure what rank that would place them though. I’ll try coding a function tonight where you can look up an account by screen name to get its ranking.
I have to agree about @andruedwards come on!
Cool to see familiar faces/friends on this list!!! Seriously without twitter – I probably would not have networked so closely with majority of them. — On that note, where is @nicoleevents or @seattleitemag —
How do you define “relationships” vs. “followers”?
Thanks!
@John: A “relationship” is when a user within the network surveyed follows a particular account. So for Shauna Causey to have 867 “relationships”, that means that 867 people out of the overall 1910 accounts surveyed follow her.
Oh ok – thanks Darren! I appreciate your help. Great post!
Thanks for running this analysis for Seattle Darren. You came up with a very solid list of the people that are in fact active in the Seattle community with events, organizations and non-profits. I love that you actually captured the people that aren’t just virtually known but instead, use social media as a tool to extend the activities they are already involved with in the physical world.
Good job. I would love to meet you at some point. Let us all know when you’re in Seattle!