Tuesday, May 31, 2011

New ranking rules in German

A user from Deutschland has translated the new followfriday.com ranking rules for the German community. We really appreciate what Thomas Piruzgar (@Maven_7) has done, because it has been a volunteer work.

Ranking Regeln (für Teilnehmende am Followfriday.com Verfahren; d.A.)

Dieses Ranking monitort Tweets aus der ganzen Welt, die einen dieser hashtags (Textmarken, d.A.) beinhalten: #ff #followfriday, #cuate, #sigueelviernes, #vivaviernes. Wir zählen alle Tweets, die zwischen Donnerstag und Samstag 12:00 GMT 12:00 GMT geschickt werden (das ist bei uns jeweils 14:00 mitteleuropäische Sommerzeit, d.A.).

Die #followfriday Tradition gibt Empfehlungen an Freitagen aber wir brauchten zusätzliche Zeit, einen Teil des Donnerstags und des Samstages, & haben daher die Spanne verlängert, um alle Länder zu überwachen und dabei die Zeitverschiebung zu berücksichtigen." ...

Laut dem Programmierteam von e24apps, die das Followfridayverfahren entwickelt haben ist.

Das Ziel der folgenden Regeln: die Reinheit des Followfriday Ranking zu erhalten und dabei sicherzustellen, dass die Rangfolge frei von Manipulation bleibt und ein genaues Abbild der gegebenen Empfehlungen und deren Qualität darstellt.

Hier ist eine Liste von Regeln für Sie, welche die Ranking Qualität garantieren helfen sollen:

  • Jeder followfriday Tweet ist in der Basisbewertung im Bereich von 0 bis 150 Punkten wert. Diese Punktzahl wird durch einen Algorithmus ermittelt, der die Tweets semantisch (Sprachfeldbezogen, d.A.) analysiert und die Bemessung der Qualität der jeweiligen Empfehlung errechnet und festlegt.
  • Jede followfriday-Empfehlung ist die berechnete Basisbewertung wert und wird durch die Anzahl der genannten Anwender in eben diesem Tweet geteilt. Wenn Sie also eine followfriday-Empfehlung, die nur Sie in dem jeweiligen Tweet erwähnt und dabei korrekt begründet, warum jemand Ihnen folgen sollte, dann bekommen Sie 150 Punkte. Wenn ein Tweet der gleichen Kategorie jedoch 2 Anwender erwähnt, erhalten Sie jeweils noch 75 Punkte und so weiter.
  • Wenn Sie die gleiche Person in der gleichen Woche wiederholt empfehlen, wird nur die erste Empfehlung und deren Qualität berücksichtigt werden. (Das bedeutet: Wenn der erste #FF-Tweet eine schlichte Aufzählung mit #FF-Markierung gewesen ist, dann bringt die für die genannten Teilnehmer 0 Punkte. Das bleibt auch so, wenn einer der genannten Teilnehmer hinterher noch eine Einzelempfehlung der höchsten Kategorie erhält, d.A.)
  • Benutzer, die mehr als 50 Empfehlungen in der gleichen Woche schreiben, werden nicht gewertet. Ihr Profil wird noch gezeigt werden, aber sie werden nicht gezählt werden. (Das bedeutet, dass sowohl ihre Empfehlungen anderer Teilnehmer als auch die bekommenen Empfehlungen aus der Wertung fallen, gelöscht werden und so zwar freundlich gemeint waren, aber trotz ehrlich gemeinter Mühe und Arbeit, den empfohlenen Kontakten nur noch ideelle Unterstützung geben, d.A.)
  • Geschützte Konten werden nicht gewertet. Ihr Profil wird noch gezeigt, aber sie werden nicht mitgezählt.
  • Selbst-Empfehlungen werden nicht berücksichtigt.
  • Retweets (RT) werden nicht berücksichtigt.
  • Danke Tweets werden nicht berücksichtigt.
  • Wenn Sie mehrere Konten zusammen führen und empfehlen sich auf einem diese eigenen Konten gegenseitig, dann werden alle Ihnen gehörenden Konten vom Followfriday-Verfahren dauerhaft ausgeschlossen..
  • Die Berechnung von Land und Sprache Platzierungen basieren auf unseren automatischen Geolokalisierungssystem-Algorithmen. Wenn Sie sicher sein möchten, in den richtigen Rankings zu erscheinen dann loggen Sie sich ein und bearbeiten bitte Ihr Profil entsprechend.
Alle diese Regeln werden automatisch angewendet, aber wir haben auch ein Anti-Spam-Team, das die Ranglisten einer Plausibilitätsprüfung unterzieht.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Indonesia’s Twitter Ghost becomes viral

The #FFtrends May 27

An urban legend from Indonesia, the 1st in the followfriday.com worldwide ranking - @poconggg is the account of an Indonesian "ghost" that got the top global followfriday.com ranking! Pocong is a mass phenomenon in this country that has become very popular on social media, especially on Twitter and Facebook. This “paranormal” has more than 370,000 followers in Twitter and he boasts over 26,000 fans on Facebook. In followfriday.com ranking, Pocong has won 28195 points!


Originally a frightening urban legend about a dead man trapped in their suit (have a look at his Twitter avatar!), this “ghost” is not an object of fear. The profile has been created just “for fun”. The popularity of the “ghost” will probably grow with news on his blog that Pocong will publish a book, and that he will mention his followers names in the book.

Last month the “paranormal” announced on Twitter that he would appear in a shopping mall in South Jakarta, and that people who wanted to be mentioned in his book should come and show their Twitter username on paper. The reaction was amazing! Draw your own conclusions.




The effort of Aiden Grimshaw’s fans - Last year the teenager Aiden Grimshaw was one of the finalists of “The X Factor”, a British television singing competition. His popularity remains high! His fans don’t measure efforts to promote his profile on Twitter: @Mr_Grimshaw has more than 250,000 followers and the account is the number 9 on the celebrities followfriday.com ranking. Congrats!


Barcelona versus Manchester United also on Twitter - Duel final Champions League between Barcelona and Manchester United also had their version on Twitter. The Catalan club won on the followfriday.com ranking too! @FCBarcelona_es is the number 7 on the celebrities ranking, and number 5 in Spain, while Rio Ferdinand (@rioferdy5), the most popular Marchester’s player on Twitter, is the number 10 on this ranking (and the number 3 in the UK ranking).



Friday, May 27, 2011

Introducing new ranking rules on FollowFriday.com

Today we are releasing a major update of FollowFriday.com. The aim of the new rules is to maintain the purity of the FollowFriday Ranking and ensure that the ranking is free of manipulation and is a true reflection of those valuable recommendations made.

Now, each #followfriday tweet is worth a base score in the range of 0 to 150 points. This score is computed by an algorithm that semantically analyzes the tweet and measures the recommendation quality.

Each #followfriday recommendation is worth the computed base score divided by the number of users recommended in that tweet. So if you receive a #followfriday recommendation which only mentions you in the tweet, and correctly justifies why I should follow you, then you will get 150 points. If the tweet mentions two users you will each receive 75 points, and so on.

Well done #followfriday recommendations:
Special #FF to @heidicohen, that writes such great tips about Twitter.
#followfriday to @SocialBro, an innovative tool to manage and analyze Twitter communities.

Bad examples of #followfriday:
#followfriday to @followfriday_es because yes!
#FF to @SocialBro, @locafollow, @followfridaycom and @resonancers

Updated rules:
  • Each #followfriday tweet is worth a base score in the range of 0 to 150 points. This score is computed by an algorithm that semantically analyzes the tweet and measures the recommendation quality.
  • Each #followfriday recommendation is worth the computed base score divided by the number of users recommended in that tweet. So if you receive a followfriday recommendation which only mentions you in the tweet, and correctly justifies why I should follow you, then you will get 150 points. If the tweet mentions 2 users you will each receive 75 points, and so on.
  • If you recommend the same person repeatedly during the same week, only the first recommendation will be taken into account.
  • Users that make more than 50 recommendations won't be ranked. Their profiles will still be shown but they will not be ranked.
  • Self recommendations won't be taken into account.
  • Re-tweets won't be taken into account
  • Thank you tweets won't be taken into account
  • If you have a lot of accounts collaborating and recommending each other to promote their rankings then all of them will be banned.
  • Country and language rankings are computed based on our automatic geolocalization algorithms, if you want to be sure to appear in the correct rankings then login and edit your profile.
  • Protected accounts won't be ranked. Their profile will still be shown but they will not be ranked.
All of these rules are applied automatically, but we also have an anti-spam team that continually checks the rankings.

Ranking Rules

Now you can check if a recommendation #followfriday is valid for the FollowFriday Ranking and how much it is worth for each recommended user, according to the ranking rules with our new tool FFValidator

FFValidator: check if a recommendation is valid and how many points has gotten

Now you can check if a recommendation #followfriday is valid for the FollowFriday Ranking and how much it is worth for each recommended user, according to the new ranking rules. It is possible thanks to a new functionality that is available today in followfriday.com: the FFValidator, which lies just below the ranking by language. The tool has been created as part of followfriday.com policy to ensure the transparency of the ranking.

To see if the tweet is valid and how many points the recommendation has gotten you need to use the tweet URL. You can click on the time that the tweet was posted to get the URL. To facilitate verification, you can drag "FFValidator Bookmarklet" to your browser's bookmark. You can also press the right mouse button and add the link to your bookmarks.

This is an example of a not valid recommendation for our ranking, because it is a retweet.

The FFValidator always gives an explanation why a recommendation has not been valid. Another example, but now a valid recommendation for the ranking. The two accounts have shared recommended total score tweet.

In the following case, there are six recommended profiles in one tweet, therefore the points are distributed equally to each of them.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

#FFtrends: new weekly section in our blog!

Today we are releasing a new section in our blog: #FFtrends! Each week we will post the news of the followfriday.com ranking, and we will discover what facts have led to its appearance among the most recommended in Twitter. The hashtag we have created (#FFtrends) will provide your tracking information every Friday.

Each Monday we will post a summary of relevant (and curious!) news relating to the previous Friday. You will find a sample of what we consider trends relating to #followfriday!

The #FFtrends May 20
  • 81-year-old man who thinks that Twitter is Google - @oldmansearch is supposedly an 81-year-old man who thinks that Twitter is Google. His account isn't even a month old and he's amassed almost 100,000 followers. At least a curious profile that has conquered the 13th on the followfriday.com worldwide ranking and the 7th on English ranking.



  • The “gleeks” and their #followfriday campaign - The fans of Glee (a musical television series that airs on Fox), commonly referred to as "gleeks", made a kind of campaign via his Twitter account (@UltimateGleeks) to get a good followfriday.com ranking position. The claim was “Win two vip Meet & greet tickets to any #GLEE LIVE tour stop of your choice?”. And to participate the user had to tweet: #FF @UltimateGleeks for the BEST #GLEE News & Giveaways! They did very well! @UltimateGleeks is the number 4 on the global followfriday.com ranking and the number 2 on English ranking.