Houston Twitterentials: My search for the real local stars of the 140-character world

Consider how one person can acquire a huge following on Twitter through the quality, quantity and frequency of their 140-character tweets. Or if you're a celebrity, then thousands of people may start following you overnight (see Twitaholic), but what keeps them tuning in and turning on?

I'm looking for true "Twitterentials" — individuals who, through his or her use of Twitter wields terrific influence on the actions people take in both the digital and physical worlds. They produce a consistent flow of tweets that entertain, inform and even inspire others on a regular basis.

Twitterentials rise above the webby din of fleeting, blathering tweets by producing 140 nuggets of value. To paraphrase Evan from his interview at the festival, it's like an object in flight that a flock of birds suddenly shift direction en masse to follow.

So back in a not-so-Alpine-high-or-climactically-cool Houston, I asked myself and others living in the Bayou City: Who are Houston's Twitterentials?

I ask this question having read articles about similar questions published by other local news organizations and the ennui list for Houston on Twitaholics These pieces felt obvious, easy and incomplete. Like eating just one pistachio, I wanted more.  

And while the followers of my personal Twitter account are meager at best (I spend most of my Tweet energy on the business side), it troubles me that it's so hard to find Houstonians who are worthy to follow for useful information or even inspiration (no offense, Joel Osteen). The search function on Twitter is lame, and TweetDeck and the like help, but still fall short. What's a simple, run-of-the-mill Twitterer to do short of chaining myself to my laptop and iPhone?

Alas, let me not complain and instead offer an idea to improve how we define and find Twitterentials on Twitter ... at least in Houston. It seems any respectable solution should involve something nerdy with numbers, a mathematical algorithm with a symbol or two from an ancient alphabet. A key that summons the inner calculus in us all, or at least some formulas we learned in college and fantasized about one day using to help solve some great mystery a la Dan Brown.

And let us not ignore the need for a warm, more human qualitative approach to augment this cold empirical methodology. What should it look like? Would it involve appointing a special committee with hearings, testimonies and secret ballots?

To start, I'm thinking an index value that factors the number of followers with tweets/updates, retweets, "both following," lists and people followed on one level combined with number of months active and search page results for @name plus content on another level. I can also see a secondary algorithm factoring the index values of everyone in a user's network, then assigning some power rating. But Twitter has a massive ecosystem.

I'm sure smarter minds have studied this, so I welcome suggestions about other criteria that can be fairly applied to discern the merely popular from the truly influential.

Meanwhile, I would be remiss not to attempt to list a variety of folks who have established a certain noteworthy voice in HTown, with a special thanks to CultureMap social media editor Fayza Elmostehi for her suggestions.

Of course, this is simply a list to get things started, it's hardly exhaustive or definitive. I welcome help from the crowd, or more exact, the individual, so please agree, disagree and suggest away in the comments section. Embrace the existential pleasures of Twitter.

Females

TheBloggess — nearly 54k Followers with rollers in your hair, now that's influence

GraceRodriguez — apparently your Peeps love you as much as they love Houston

Cosmopolitician — for a voice listened to by many and backed up by a chorus of Warhols

Miyashay — a reporter at ABC 13 with serious multi-platform "skillz"

FarWyde — you had me at cockfighting

HeatherPray — does your dog Tweet?

Males

Dsilverman — a Grand Wizard of Technology; or at least you look the part

JRCohen —  you look worth knowing  ... and following

TheMoleSkin — clearly a passion for all things digital

GunsandTacos — who can deny the magic of guns, tacos and weird music?

OrganPrinter — I'd like to hear you spin

Marc1919 — a master networker in Houston and ...

AlanDavidson — dude, you're selling

Matt Wiliams is co-founder of Mouth Watering Media LLC, a Houston-based company that developed the platform for CultureMap