Tweets of all kinds can be similarly measured. Yes, some Tweets will have to be judged down one side or the other. If I found a math problem that was written diagonally, I had to decide if it was more horizontally or more vertically done. Those decisions were mine alone, but I could have easily formed a committee to make them instead.

So it can be done. But who would spend the time and money, though? Devising a scale, translating the qualitative data into a mass of quantitative data, then providing an analysis of the results would be a major undertaking that would yield a margin of error as big as Manhattan. In other words, the data aren’t worth it. Twitter, and any online conversations, should be regarded as trends, fads, not law. Trends need to be assessed quickly and simply. I’m sticking with my time-span keyword cloud proposal for this.

As PurpleCar notes, it’s probably around thresholds – which I imagine can only be determined through quantitative analysis. The trickiest one, I think, will be “mavens”. My hunch is that the majority of activity will be around connecting and/ or “selling”, so the threshold for maven activity might be low.

However, putting together two pieces of data – in my mind- holds a lot of promise. The first is % of posts that direct readers back to one’s own blog post / idea. The second is direct response to such posts through Twitter – via RTs and @s.

But as I start playing with the actual numbers, I realize how tough this may get – particularly since @ replies are used in a variety of ways, and are often in conjunction with an RT.

Leads me to think a lit more qualitative analysis may be required than I thought – judgement calls about whether responses are being used to connect one person’s idea with another individual, or to provide some sort of answer to a question.

Hmmm…

I suppose yours (and my!) use of Twitter for random thoughts would simply correlate to Gladwell’s mavens, connectors and salespeople living out their lives. Those types are doing those behaviors 24/7. I think we just want to categorize the MAJORITY of behavior on Twitter. Everyone is allowed some random thoughts, no doubt. We’re all human, after all.

You bring up a good point, though. We should qualify a percentage of tweets, perhaps 80% salesman behavior qualifies that tweeter as a salesman. The other 20% can be noise. What do you think the threshold would be? 75%? 60%? What percentage of a person’s tweets need to be solidly categorized within a Gladwell type to be safely considered part of that category?

Interesting question. Good point.