Instead of relying on complex, secret “influence” algorithms like Klout and Peer Index, Twiangulate measures influence as reach, the number of people who follow a tweeter's real biggest followers.

When calculating biggest followers, Twiangulate only includes people who might actually read tweets. We exclude mega accounts that follow more than 11,000 people or with a friend/follower ratio below 1.5.

That’s real clout, right?

Here's a list of overused words in Twitter bios that fail by telling rather than showing. Click the words below to see who uses each in Twitter.

Expert or Maven (33,209) It’s up to your peers, not you, to declare you an expert. Too often, seeing "expert" in a bio sends us running in the opposite direction. Kinda like being a self-described "winner."

Guru (14,309) Nothing shouts "leader of a cult with one member" more than a self-titled "guru." Unless you're a yogi or a certified leader of Eastern religion, leave the Guru-ing to, you know, Gurus.

Social Media (44,518) If you're a "social media" strategist, chances are that your intended audience is full of other "social media" types. And they don't call it social media, they just call it "work."

Enthusiast (39,237) Enthusiast sounds sweeter and less pompous than guru or expert. It's just that, well, lots of other people are enthusiastic about being an enthusiast. How about "fan?" Or, if you're just trying to say it with more syllables, try "aficionado."

Nerd (31,052) Back in the day, "nerd" was an inflammatory word that conjured up images of taped-together glasses and greasy hair. Today, "nerd" can be synonymous with "enthusiast," both in meaning and frequency of use on the internet.

Geek (68,754) The debate has raged over the differences between nerds and geeks since Sputnik. This venn diagram indicates a geek is a nerd with social skills. There are a lot of networked nerds out there.

Human or Person (128,109) It may feel sensitive to finish off your bio with "human" or "person." But your writing should prove you're not a robot.  If your bio says "father, skateboarder, guitarist, social media guru, cyborg," THEN we're excited.

2.0 (13,711), Interactive (12,179), and Online (103,349)Do you add "Earth" to your mailing address?

Don't despair if you're using some of these words or phrases.  But if you're using two at once -- for example Social Media Enthusiasts (2791) or Expert Gurus (470) -- do some pruning.

And if you're using three -- Online Mavens of Geekdom -- hire a human.

Bonus: There are 8901 ninjas on twitter. Who's minding the dojo?

For more fun with buzzword (ab)use, check out LinkedIn's most overused profile buzzwords.

"In a case of ironic symbolism, the far left-most satellites are the Whitehouse, State Department, and Wael Ghonim's employeer, Eric Schmidt, who is merely a speck on the map. And that's probably how everyone in the rest of the network would like this future to look. " See the map here.

LinkedIn's new service is very cool, allowing a user to label the various groups she discerns among her contacts. The cluster mapping was, as far as I could tell, very accurate. Here's the map for Henry Copeland.

"Early results may indicate that Wikipedia isn’t as communal, egalitarian and free of division of labor as thought. Hierarchies featuring bosses and workers, elites and the not-so-elite, have developed. This may, in fact, be necessary when humans organize to produce something as complex as an encyclopedia, despite the essentially democratic nature of network technologies that can, theoretically, allow anyone to participate equally." Plus cools maps and descriptions of code/hardware. Social network analysis of Wikipedia.

Are Twitter users idiots who can't spell John Lennon's name right?

No doubt some of them are dumb enough to spell it "Lenon," which is currently listed as a trending topic.

In fact, "Lennon" seems to show up at least five times as often if you run simultanous searches of Lennon and Lenon.

So it appears that Twitter's trending topic algorithms ignore "Lennon" because the name of the greatest Beatle already shows up thousands of times every day of the year. In other words, the machine thinks Lennon isn't news. Clearly some tweaking needed.

This seems to parallel the situation with the nontrending Wikileaks.

Update: here's a good analysis of the Lenon/Lennon problem, concluding that "But it’s important to stop at this point and note that even though the reasons are understandable, they still make absolutely no sense."

There are two easy ways to find a person on Twitter, even when the person is not using her/his exact name as a Twitter ID.

First, you can use Twiangulate's "keyword" search for the person's name. Here are 53 people who are identifying themselves as "Lucy Smith" on Twitter.

If this method doesn't work, try to think of two or three people who might know the person you're looking for and then input their names into Twiangulate's "common friends" search.

For example, if you're looking to follow Elizabeth Spiers, Gawker's first editor, you might look for her among the friends of NYC media insiders like David Carr (@carr2n) and Gawker (@gawker) and Anil Dash (@anildash.) Sure enough, she's right there.

Want to map the relationships among a bunch a tweeps? It's really quick and easy. (Works best with <100 tweeps.)

Our colleagues in Budapest helped create this Perez Hilton app. Go ahead and download the app if you're in the mood for some crazy gossip.

Use this search to compare two or three tweeps and see who has the biggest set of followers.

Running a political campaign and want to know how your candidate is doing versus the other candidates? Think that @aplusk has the biggest followers even if @britneyspears has more followers? Want to know which social media influentials are listening to your competition but not you? This is the feature for you. After all, its not just the size of your following, its what you do with it.

To get a feel for how this works, compare @britneyspears, @aplusk and @theellenshow or @sarahpalinusa, @SenJohnMcCain and @newtgingrich or@HarvardBiz, @NintendoNews and @fastcompany or @gruber, @ginatrapani and @zeldman. As you'll see, the left-most column displays, in photo form, which of the three target tweeps an individual is following.

You can also use this feature to learn who your 100 biggest followers are just by entering your Twitter nickname in the first field.

If you want to book-mark this page, here's the URL: http://twiangulate.com/search/#biggest_followers

In returning these results, we ignore results containing tweeps who follow more than 11k people, figuring that those follow decisions don't reflect an actual interest in what his/her friends are tweeting.