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Measuring the Influence of a User on Twitter

Lautzenheiser, Daniel E

Abstract Details

2013, MS, University of Cincinnati, Engineering and Applied Science: Computer Science.
This thesis focuses on the problem of measuring the influence of a user on Twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging service and one of the most widely used social media websites in existence today. With its heavily structured nature, Twitter is a near perfect environment in which to observe social interactions and determine the level of influence a given individual exerts on the people who see their content. The data set used in this thesis consists of a very active group of users with widely varying numbers of followers. An algorithm using various publicly available statistics is developed to measure the influence of a given user. In addition an extension of the algorithm to add recursion is detailed, and a description of a real time application that would run the algorithm is presented. The final influence scores are compared against a prominent online influence measuring service called Klout. Through an analysis of the proposed algorithm, this thesis shows that while having the algorithm be complex adds much needed nuance to the scoring process, in the end the amount of followers a Twitter user has is a fairly accurate measurement of that user's influence.
Fred Annexstein, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Kenneth Berman, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Raj Bhatnagar, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
40 p.

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Citations

  • Lautzenheiser, D. E. (2013). Measuring the Influence of a User on Twitter [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1384426103

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lautzenheiser, Daniel. Measuring the Influence of a User on Twitter. 2013. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1384426103.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lautzenheiser, Daniel. "Measuring the Influence of a User on Twitter." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1384426103

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)