Because I love playing around with data and mathematical algorithms, I got the idea to start developing Twitfluence, a tool that would measure Twitter influence. Together with my colleauges from Neolab we managed to set up a more wide-scale concept, and the prototype calculation is already accessible for test users, so you better brace yourself. While we know there are other similar services available (Klout, PeerIndex, Twitter Counter, Twitalyzer, Twitter Grader, TweetLevel, Twinfluence) we still gave it try, because non of them actually gave us the information we've expected them to: how cool am I on Twitter. They are either too plain or too complex (Klout and PeerIndex are an excepton), or the results are simply displayed in such a way they're hard to understand and it's almost impossible to get any useful knowledge out of it.
Twitfluence is a simple piece of software that connects to your Twitter account and makes a calculation based on your followers, tweets and lists. You can take a look at the application basic info or the detailed description about how the prototype calculation works, and if you're kind enough, you can even leave a comment about how proper or wrong it is or what can be done to improve it (here is the full version history). But even a simple calculation about your profile will be more than appreciated and a great help in gathering the data needed for the release version.
People disagree on what the most important measure of your influence on Twitter is. But then again, you have to start somewhere, so we've done it according to our perception of Twitter. The prototype calculation currently gives the biggest emphasis to data concerning your followers, followed by mentions and retweets, and finally modified by your lists. Nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary.
The results wouldn't be as interesting if they wouldn't tell where you fit in. Therefore, after the calculation, you will get compared other people who used the calculation besides people that are in the same timezone as you are. A bit of competition can't hurt, but please don't be offended if the score is lower than you would imagine. As more calculations are made, we will probably be able to make it even better and more correct.
Twitter, it's content, connections and interactions, together with it's API hold great potential for things like this, so why not make something useful and amusing out of it. I hope we will.