INFLUENCE: Who says what, to whom in the blogosphere?

To assess the influence of those who produce content on the blogosphere and on the web (blog posts, forum comments, YouTube videos, Flick' R images, Facebook groups, Twitter tweets), we ask ourselves, "Who says what to whom?".

Who: a blog author, a commentator on a blog, a blog creator/publisher (editor) who leaves a written trace

What: themes of discussion expressed in sentences, words, and photo or video captions

To whom: the intentional/unintentional exchange of ideas and words throughout the network links connecting internet users

Influence doesn’t depend only on the capacity of an internet user to generate an audience. It also depends on their capacity to be exhaustive on a subject, to reach a consensus (or not) in the expression of their ideas, to touch upon different universes and networks of exchange at different levels. In other words, influence isn’t a question of readership or visibility, but a question of strategic adaptation to the web environment (we call it Rézodience).

To break with the pattern of evaluating an individual’s influence by means of their web preferences and blog audience, Exvisu has developed a method for measuring the process linking semantic terms and influence of ideas: who says what to whom, in what networks, with what impact? We identify and evaluate both the influential ideas and the authors who are capable of broadcasting these ideas into other networks, in turn composed of multiple authors… (As opposed to single-subject, single-network authors sharing ideas in a limited circle of closed exchange).

For example: A journalistic blog addressing only peers "reflected in its microcosm", would have reduced influence despite being renowned and/or having offline visibility (outside the web). On the other hand, a simple comment on a comment can rise to the top of the ranks of web visibility because its subject has current influence and touches on much wider networks and more frequently discussed themes.