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andreyf
Um, not only is it insanely trivial easy to game, but it would have also been easy to "TweetRank" by counting the number of @-mentions of an account.
Fenn
Absolutely, this is the technique used by Topsy/etc. That said, @ mentions have multiple contexts (replies, mentions, retweet, follow-friday, etc).

The formal retweet structure lets you build a true/formally defined social graph.

pierrefar
The graph, as you say, is only for one aspect (retweets). It would be neat if a tool can figure out the context and build multiple social graphs.
trezor
I just use twitter to post status updates, I don't know nor care what tweetrank is, and I don't try to game the system or get a million people following me. I follow friends and friends follow me.

I never retweet stuff. To me that is the equivalent of mass email forwards and god I hate those.

Is it time for me to feel weird now or is it just the world that has gone crazy over some new emperor's clothes?

ludwig
I don't know. There are some great links that I would've missed if it were not for retweets. If all you get are "mass-email"-type RTs, get better friends :-)
njharman
You just commented on a site that is essentially a ranked / voted list of retweets.
trezor
I have serious doubts about that being true. What about people submitting their own content? Stuff from RSS? Irc? Forwards at work? Random discovery? Only links I have ever seen on twitter is to Wil Weathon's blog posts. Not a single link I have posted on HN/reddit has ever come from twitter.

Guess my friends are more interested in posting original stuff than plugging content, and I'm pretty happy about that. If it's on their site, my RSS reader checks the internet 400x more times a day than I check twitter myself.

I think some twitter "power users" are oblivious to the fact that to everyone else it doesn't have to be the end all be all new everything communication platform it is to them. Me at least, I'm fully open about my ignorance about other uses :)