Frequently Asked Questions (and Qs we sometimes ask ourselves)


What is Twiangulate for?

Twiangulate discovers hidden tweeters, friends of friends (or friends of enemies), micro-influentials who only insiders follow... or sometimes just friends you haven't yet seen tweeting.

But don't we already have lots of ways to find tweeps?

Twitter's SUL and its new "user generated" Lists are monocular glimpses of a dynamic, multi-dimensional world. We need tools that express the insights and judgments of small groups, rather than of single individuals or giant crowds.

Your search results highlight the people with the fewest followers. Why?

Services like Twitterholic do an excellent job of tracking power-tweeters like Barack and Perez. The people that Twiangulate pinpoints may often be obscure, but we think they're anything but unimportant. By definition, these people are followed by two or three people you are already interested in, so they're more likely to be important to you than those Twitter stars everybody follows.

Who is building Twiangulate?

The team behind Pressflex and Blogads, led by @hc, with @megwegk310, @kaleycatherine, and @JNSiracusa. We designed the original Twiangulate to serve our own needs and since then have responded to friends' requests for additional features.

When I search my own "biggest followers," why don't you show @BarackObama following me?

We want to focus on meaningful results. @BarackObama follows 740,646 people, and as far as we can tell, their names and distribution is pretty much random. Same for other tweeps who follow 10s or 100s of thousands of people.

What does "common friends" mean?

Friends = people someone follows. We originally used the word "followee" but this sounded too arcane and "friends" is the term used in the API.

What are some examples of "common friends" searches?

Try some of the following combinations and maybe you'll get it: ev + biz + jack, carr2n + jayrosen_nyu + jeffjarvis, PerezHilton + ParisHilton + iamdiddy, markos + maddow + michellemalkin, TEDchris + SteveCase + pierre, robcorddry + rainnwilson + SarahKSilverman, hc + Jason + nicknotned or jimmy_wales + kevinrose + Caterina.

On the map of "biggest followers" why don't all the people link to the tweep who was the subject of the search?

This map shows two-way follows, so if the searchee isn't following a big follower back, the link isn't displayed.

Who should I contact if I want to write an article about Twiangulate?

Please write press at blogads.com.

How do you say Twiangulate in Latin?

QUEM SEQUITUR QUI?

Twiangulate just seems to keep evolving. Where does it end?

Mr. Godot told me to tell you he won't come this evening but surely tomorrow.