Frequently Asked Questions

How do you measure importance?

Our formula for importance is based on social networks theories. We measure the community's reaction towards a tweet by accounting for retweets and replies. However, we weight a tweet's importance against the author's popularity. By doing so, we aim at giving voice to those millions of people who do not enjoy a lot of followers but who still have something interesting to say.

How is The Tweet Watch different from other 'Hot-Tweets' services?

The difference is in our formula of importance. Most services are based on the number of retweets to conclude that a tweet is hot. Because celebrities have more followers, what ever they say will get retweeted more often than a non-celebrity. This is reason why you will most probably find stuff said by celebrities when you visit these websites. By using a different formula to find tweets that matter, we offer a content that is based on interesting things said by just anybody. We are convinced that the real benefit of Twitter is in empowering ordinary citizens to be in touch with each other. This is where we want to differ from other services.

Why would I use The Tweet Watch when I already follow reliable sources?

Since Twitter is an open communication platform, people will follow people who are a) popular and b) talking about subjects that they are interested in. However, we might also be in search of inspiration. We might want to find out about subjects we have no clue of. The Tweet Watch is a good way to get inspired by ideas coming from ordinary people. It is also great to be aware of events that might go unnoticed but that we would want to know about.

I found tweets about Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga...Why?

That's because a lot of people are interested in Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga! While our goal is to find tweets that are interesting, we do not want to impose our own subjective view of what is interesting. Anybody, including celebrities, can be saying something interesting. And any subject, including Justin Bieber, can be interesting. We don't pay so much attention to what people tweet about, but more to how others react to them.