Updating the Futurist Influence Rankings and Keynote Speaker Influence Rankings algorithms

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Just over three years ago we launched our Futurist Influence Rankings and Keynote Speaker Influence Rankings.

These both use a simple algorithm to combine measures of online impact including web traffic and social media impact to rank the influence of prominent futurists and keynote speakers.

Any rankings of online influence certainly shouldn’t be taken too seriously, however our simple charts offer a reasonable picture of relative impact given the limited measures available.

The demise of Klout

We have had to update the algorithm since the social influence platform Klout shut down earlier this year.

Klout was widely criticized throughout its life, however it was probably the best aggregation of social media impact available, incorporating responses to activity on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other platforms.

Since the demise of Klout, Peerindex, and other influence engines after their heyday we have chosen to replace Klout in our algorithm with Followerwonk Social Authority. This analyzes authority on Twitter only, however Facebook and LinkedIn now share very little user data so rankings tools cannot effectively incorporate these platforms into their measures.

Updated rankings pages

Go the pages to see the updated and current rankings:
Futurist Influence Rankings
Keynote Speaker Influence Rankings.
These pages also include detailed explanations of the methodology and a form for submitting people to be added to the rankings.

Let me know any thoughts on the influence ranking update!