Interview with Caleb Mingle – Creator of Twitistics – An Upcoming Twitter Stats Application

Most of us would be familiar by now with various Twitter web applications that provide some kind of Statistics calculation/visualization.
For example, Tweetstats give you some detail stats on how much you Tweet in a certain period of time (monthly, daily, hourly), as well as whom you reply-to the most and which Twitter client you use often.  It also give you a nice Tweet Cloud (a cloud of words that you tweeted most), or, if you like, the fun Wordle version of it :)

Below is my Tweetstats (click to zoom):

Another example is TwitterCounter, which is a favorite among Tweeple to show a trend chart of followers, friends and updates.  In addition it also shows Top 100 rank by Followers, globally or by location (e.g. top 100 for London).

Here is mine:

But just when I thought there is nothing more to squeeze out of Twitter stats, Twitistics came along.  Twitistics (now still under development) is the brainchild of Caleb Mingle (@Dentafrice) who is also the lead developer of the project.  I came across Caleb when I was checking out another service that he co-authored Tweetoclock, when he tweeted me that he was developing another project that will have more features.  Although Twitistics (great name bytheway) is still under-development, I managed to get Caleb to agree on an inteview, for him to tell us more about his project.

Here is the interview:

1. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

My name is Caleb Mingle, I’m a young programmer from North Carolina (in the states).  I’ve been a web developer for a number of years.  I mainly code PHP, and on the desktop side, I am a C# programmer.  I enjoy creating applications that interact freely with other things, that is the main reason that I “dev into” Twitter applications.  Twitter has one of the most amazing API(s) that I’ve used, along with Facebook.  I can’t design worth a lick.. I’m a logic person :) You can have logic, or creativity, I got the logic gene :)

2. Tell us in your own words what Twitistics.com is all about.

Twitistics puts the way you user Twitter, into a different perspective.  We show you how you use Twitter and when you use Twitter.  We gather a number of statistics, and show them to you in a new light.
Sometimes learning new things about how you use services on the internet, can improve how you use them.. and improve what you use them for.. as well as give you new ideas on how to use them.

3. There are already other Twitter Statistics apps out there (TwitterCounter comes to mind) that seem to provide similar service.  What does make Twitistics different?  What is it that makes it unique? and could you tell us the range of features that Twitistics would provide?

Most of the “Twitter Statistics” site focus mainly, and only on follower count.  You know how many followers you have, and it might be “fun” to rank yourself in a database.. but what does that tell you?  It just tells you that you have a lot of followers, and/or that you follow a lot of people.
What does that really tell you about how you use Twitter?   Twitistics is an attempt to change that.  We combine all these ideas into one application, to put this into light. We tell you when you use Twitter (what day do you use Twitter the most.. what time of day do you use Twitter the most), and actually what day and time together you use it the most.

We can tell you whether you Tweet more, or reply more.  That’s a visualization on how you use Twitter.  Do you use Twitter to engage in conversation?  Or do you use Twitter to provide updates?

We also do incorporate some of the ideas that other sites (like TwitterCounter) use, and provide you a ratio on how you follow back users (followers / following).

We also analyze who you Tweet to most, as in @replies.  We generate a report on your most replied to users, if any (this goes back to the “how you use Twitter” (replies/tweets) to show you).
We also analyze your “hashtag” usage, and what hashtags you Tweet about the most, if you use them.
Along with the hashtags you use, we also analyze which words you use the most in your Tweets.  (We remove common words, so most of the words analyzed are actual topics).

We also put a new look on the kind of people you follow, and the kind of people that follow you.  We analyze your latest followers and your latest friends (following) and analyze them a little bit.  We get their bios, and find the most popular topic you follow/follow you.  As in “topics” we mean things such as “developer”, “marketing”, or “entrepreneur “.  This can give you a new idea on how you use Twitter, or how Twitter uses you :).

We also class those people that follow you into “brackets” based on their follower count.  Depending on their follower count, we can determine what type of people mostly follow you.. and what type of people you mostly follow.  Popular people?  Unpopular people?  Bots? Or just normal people with an average amount of followers.
The final thing, at this moment, that we look at.. is the links that you post.  What links do you post the most, or talk about the most (please note we remove most URL shortening services, and only focus on links to sites that you post, that are not shortened).

Caleb then gave me an access to the project that he was working on so I could have a look and play at it.  I will write what I found on my next post.  But, from what I’ve seen so far, the range of feature that Twitistics provides, complements quite nicely with other competing services mentioned above.

You can Follow Caleb on his Twitter Account @Dentafrice.
You can also follow me at @mahadewa.

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