Mr. Tweet, the personal networking assistant for twitter, has all the twitterati talking. According to the website, “Mr. Tweet looks through your extended network to help you build effective relationships on Twitter.”

I used and enjoyed the service. Recently, I interviewed its founder, Steve Ming Yeow Ng, over email. Our discussion is below.

Have you actively marketed yourself? If so, how?
We are almost at 14,000 [followers] now, gaining at about 1000 a day. The amazing thing is that all our users came almost exclusively from word of mouth, as opposed to active marketing, or even PR. Even all of PR came from users who used us and love the service.

Who are 3 of your most memorable Twitter friends and what makes them memorable?
Haha, I keep close track of the conversations, and I have to say it is these 3:

1) Gary V – cause his personality is so amazingly outsized yet endearing at the same time.

2) Marta Strickland – cause she is smart and sassy, and generous with ideas

3) Acclimedia – cause she is very critical, w/o ever being negative. Very hard balance to achieve, but she does it

4) KrisColvin – I was blown away when I read her blog (as part of user research), because she shares so much of her valuable thought process in such detail. She is actually a classic case where I felt that the world would be a much more valuable place if more people could learn from her, as opposed to being obsessed with the same few people all the time. And that kind of granularity of connecting is what we will be gunning for soon

If I use Twitter Grader do I need Mr. Tweet?
We are a very different ball game. We do not offer a universal grading statistic, because we think that is very misleading. Influence is an attribute of the audience, not an attribute of the person. IE, it really is personalized. My kid is highly influential to me, but he is probably has zero influence on you. On a similar note, Werner Vogels cannot be compared to Scoble when you try to apply a universal ranking, but as the is probably the leading thought leader when it comes to Cloud Computing, his thoughts are immensely influential for technologists and backend engineers. Hence, influence depends much less on the person being graded, but who he is being graded for.

Can you share a few interesting stats with us (your growth, what features people use, stats that marketers may find compelling)?
Haha, we do not have many features, and we are not ready to publish some of the stats yet, although we will do so at some point.
That said, I can say one thing with confidence: People are not interested in subscribing to marketing messages, or celebrities/companies who follow random people. They are interested in personalities who value relationships.
I know this sounds like common knowledge, but both the stats and the user feedback back these up ->People are really a lot more interested in listening to people who are building relationships. There is a very strong reciprocal effect here.

What has been the most interesting part of launching Mr. Tweet?
Definitely the enthusiastic user feedback, and seeing the diversity of ways we add value. It is an amazing feeling.

A recent presentation from Mr. Tweet’s founder:

Discovery Is The New Cocaine – Going Beyond Engagement

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: discovery ux)

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