Monthly Archives: June 2011

Fast Company’s 2011 Most Influential Women In Technology

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Here, we’ve taken the 31 women (representing 30 different entries) included in Fast Company’s 2011 – The Most Influential Women in Technology list, and put them to the PeekScore test.

You can head on over to Fast Company and read the PeekScore-centric article we created the below list to accompany here.

Rank Picture Name Bio Current PeekScore
1

Chloe Sladden Media Partner, Twitter TV 10.00 / 10
2

Veronica Belmont Host, Revision3 9.97 / 10
3

Marissa Mayer Vice President of Consumer Products, Google 8.95 / 10
4

Shira Lazar Host, Partners Project 8.22 / 10
5

Heather Harde CEO, Techcrunch 8.19 / 10
6

Rachel Sterne CEO, Ground Report 8.17 / 10
7

Cynthia Breazeal Founder, Personal Robots Groups MIT 8.08 / 10
8



Jennifer Aaker General Atlantic Professor of Marketing, Stanford GSB 8.07 / 10
9

Kellee Santiago President, That Game Company 8.05 / 10
10



Ory Okolloh Policy Manger, Africa for Google 8.04 / 10
11

Julia Kaganskiy Editor, The Creators Project 8.02 / 10
12

Leslie Bradshaw Founder, Jess3 8.02 / 10
13

Carolyn Leighton Founder, Women in Tech Intl. 7.84 / 10
14

Prerna Gupta CEO, Khush Inc. 7.71 / 10
15

Sona Mehring Founder, CaringBridge 7.46 / 10
16



Natalie Jeremijenko NYU engineer & environmental scientist 7.13 / 10
17

Jennifer Fleiss Co-Founder, Rent the Runway 6.98 / 10
18

Rachel Hruska Founder, GuestofaGuest 6.30 / 10
19

Nichole Goodyear CEO, Brickfish 6.04 / 10
20

Alisa Miller CEO, Public Radio International 5.83 / 10
21

Limor Fried Founder. Adafruit Industries 5.79 / 10
22

Heather Kelley Founder, Perfect Plum 5.69 / 10
23



Alexa Hirschfeld Co-Founder, Paperless Post 5.53 / 10
24



Dr. Robin Murphy Founder, Robot-Assistance Search & Rescue 5.35 / 10
25

Katrin Verclas Founder, MobileActive.org 5.34 / 10
26



Jessica Kahn Vice President of Engineering, Disney Mobile 5.33 / 10
27



Cher Wang CEO, HTC 5.09 / 10
28



Telle Whitney President, Anita Borg Institute 5.05 / 10
29

Erin Robinson Independent Game Developer, Adventure Game Studio 5.03 / 10
30



Jennifer Hyman Co-Founder, Rent the Runway 4.80 / 10
31

Mary Meeker Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers 4.23 / 10

Comparing the Digital Footprints of 10 of Wall Street’s Biggest Names

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Today we’re putting the captains of industry, or the titans of finance, or whatever description you believe most apt (or poetic, or least boring), to the PeekScore test. Here are ten of Wall Street’s foremost names, ranked not by their earnings, their power, nor even their influence in the world at large, but – as we do things around here – by the size of their respective digital footprints.

As has been the case with some of the folks on other lists we’ve recently compiled, this is not a group of individuals you’re going to find hunched in a corner and mindlessly thumbing away at their iPhones, nor are you likely to find these folks much making with the hashtags, memes, or LOLs in any public forum. They’re a bit otherwise occupied for the likes of that sort of stuff. With very little social networking or blogging going on inside the glistening, mighty towers in which these men reside, these PeekScores serve mostly as a direct measurement of the current news media prominence – and ongoing reporting of the various triumphs and tribulations – of each of these individuals. As is evident in their PeekScores, while they’re surely present and accounted for on the web, their online existences are mostly humble (the men themselves, we’d wager, are less so).

Do you have any suggestions for lists you’d like to see us do? Any thoughts on this one? Let us know, and we’ll give all you have to share our serious consideration.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Lloyd Blankfein CEO – Goldman Sachs 8.04 / 10
2

James Gorman CEO – Morgan Stanley 8.00 / 10
3

Brady Dougan CEO – Credit Suisse 7.55 / 10
4

James Dimon CEO – JPMorgan Chase 7.20 / 10
5

Kenichi Watanabe President – Nomura Securities 6.95/ 10
6

Robert Diamond Group Chief Executive – Barclays 6.31 / 10
7

Thomas Montag President – Bank of America Merrill Lynch 6.20 / 10
8

Gary Cohn President and COO – Goldman Sachs 6.02 / 10
9

Josef Ackermann CEO – Deutsche Bank 5.69 / 10
10

Anshu Jain Head of the Corporate & Investment Bank – Deutsche Bank 5.15 / 10

PeekScore Competitions: Tech Power Players, Old vs. Young

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

They’re not the Yankees and the Red Sox, nor the Sharks and the Jets. They’re not the snake and the mongoose. The rivalry we’ll be exploring today – in our flagship entry of what we believe could become a recurring feature – is one we’ve partially concocted. Today’s contest is one born of our own intellectual curiosity and desire to feel like bigshots; playing with human (online) existences like so many pieces on our PeekScore chessboard.

Since the early days of social media’s ascent to cultural dominance, much in the way of hay has been made about the generation gap evident in its user base. So the hubbub goes, mommies and daddies (some of them, at least) can sort of grasp “the Facebooks,” but the allure of, say, a Foursquare – and detailing your every move and whereabouts for any and all who care to know – evades them. With this conceit in mind, we thought it would be a hoot to explore this in a fairly unscientific way, using a slanted case study sample of each the fresh-faced and the haggard. We created two lists, one of internet and tech crackerjacks – CEOs, inventors, and founders of major companies and platforms – who are still wet behind their bratty little ears (even if they’re dabbing them with billion dollar bills to dry off). The other list is of long-toothed and weather-beaten veterans, all of whom have crossed the 30 threshold and would in the world of Logan’s Run be well due to be sent off to carrousel (which, incidentally, is a lie). In our world, however, they’re left to grow old, and can buy and sell us all.

Okay! Enough babble! Let’s start with a look at the terribly wealthy youngsters.


INTERNET AND/OR TECH HOTSHOTS, AGES 30 AND UNDER:

Rank Picture Name Company PeekScore
1

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook 10.00 / 10
2

Pete Cashmore Mashable 10.00 / 10
3

Matt Mullenweg WordPress 10.00 / 10
4

Andrew Mason Groupon 9.03 / 10
5

David Karp Tumblr 9.01/ 10
6

Ryan Allis iContact 8.91 / 10
7

Gurbaksh Chahal gWallet 8.69 / 10
8

Naveen Selvadurai foursquare 8.60 / 10
9

Justin Kan Justin.tv 8.26/ 10
10

Matt Mickiewicz SitePoint 8.20 / 10

AVERAGE PEEKSCORE: 9.07
…
The above list is lagrely populated with the creators and CEOs of many of the most used and beloved social networking platforms around today. Nearly all of these fellas – whatever the nature of their companies – exist personally, and fully, within the social media sphere; with blogs, and Facebooks, and Twitter accounts more common than not. This, along with their general fame and significant media presence is – to varying degrees (mostly consistent with, and proportionate to, the widespread name recognition of each) – reflected in what are their rather across-the-board high PeekScores.

But what of the aged? Can they compete, what with their frail bones and hoarse voices, and terror in the face of a rapidly changing world that is leaving them behind? It seems that, even with only some of them having a particularly strong social media presence, that indeed they can. Quite well, actually. At least so far as overall digital footprints are concerned.

In fairness, the PeekScores don’t tell the full tale here – apart from affirming that people over 30 are indeed awesome – and we’ll elaborate a bit after showing you the list
…

TECH AND/OR INTERNET LUMINARIES, AGES 31 AND UP:

Rank Picture Name Company PeekScore
1

Steve Ballmer Microsoft 10.00 / 10
2

Larry Page Google 10.00 / 10
3

Steve Jobs Apple 10.00 / 10
4

Evan Williams Twitter/Blogger 10.00 / 10
5

Carol Bartz Yahoo! 9.46 / 10
6

Larry Ellison Oracle 9.19 / 10
7

Michael Arrington TechCrunch 9.06/ 10
8

Jeff Bezos Amazon 8.35 / 10
9

Paul Otellini Intel 8.02/ 10
10

John Donahoe eBay 7.10 / 10

AVERAGE PEEKSCORE: 9.12

The old folks did win, and with some comfort. To a large degree this seemed to come down to the mainstream prominence of those who run the giant tech companies, as opposed to the (by comparison) smaller, startup internet concerns. Mark Zuckerberg is clearly one of the most famous men in America, but neither Matt Mickiewicz nor SitePoint are household names (even for their relative import and influence). On the other hand, you may never have heard of Paul Otellini, but odds are you’ve heard of Intel (and, for what it’s worth, are reading this very sentence on a computer using one of their processors). While it may not be in the articles you’re reading, the guy’s name does make the papers quite a bit.

Was it a fair fight? Well, the fact is, the younger techie VIPs are much more alive and present in the world of social media, and there’s no question this influenced their scores greatly. It was, after all, a close contest. Man for man – “their best guy versus our best guy” – the kids win, as it’s one of their team who has everyone beat. While we max out our scoring at 10, there are many “shades of 10″ to the PeekScore, and none of the 20 names listed above has a larger absolute PeekScore than Mr. Zuckerberg. But, ultimately, the oldsters had the unfair advantage of too many household names on their list (Ballmer, Jobs, Ellison, etc.).

What have we learned? First and foremost, that PeekScores do what they’re supposed to do, and accurately measure an individual’s impact in cyberspace – as well as the impact of a broader demographic sampling. We also learned that young folks are more active in the social media realm than the older folks. AND, well, we confirmed the rather obvious fact that the CEOs of major, long established corporations are generally more famous than the young entrepreneurs behind even very successful startups.

So, we didn’t learn much that we didn’t already know, but we had a heck of a time along the way, didn’t we?

If you’d like to see this sort of thing become a regular feature on the PeekScore blog, let us know. What two groups – from sports teams, to groupings of folks more random and imaginative – would you like to see us have face off in the PeekScore arena? The sky’s the limit. Any and all suggestions will at least be seriously considered.
…

The Digital Footprints of 10 of the World’s Top Physicists

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Rest assured, you have read this entry’s title correctly. We’re not going to lie to you, this entry exists most of all because we felt it was time to class up this joint a little bit. We’ve done lists of models, and lists related to tawdry, headline grabbing scandals. We’ve written about athletes, and politicians, and even professsional wrestlers. While we apologize for none of that, we nonetheless felt that it was time to at least pretend to, momentarily, aspire to something greater. It is our sincere hope that merely by association, this entry will make the PeekScore blog appear deep.

You needn’t even speculate over who topped the list, as you likely guessed upon seeing this entry existed at all. He is the most famous physicist on Earth. Beyond him, however, we are featuring many staggering minds; only a couple of whom have any sort of social networking presence. This comes as no surprise, of course. They do, though, nearly all have homepages – however slight – associated with their universities, and many of them have quite a few citations, quotes, and articles strewn throughout cyberspace. While fairly matched against one another, and therefore reasonably competitive, it is a list of modest PeekScores for the most part.

Who are some of your favorite physicists? Don’t be shy. Share with us your feelings on the holographic principle, supersymmetry, superstrings, and so forth. You’re among friends here.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Stephen Hawking A theoretical physics populist – aiding in making some big ideas, in even the most vague sense, comprehensible to we plebs – best known for his A Brief History of Time. 8.65 / 10
2

Lisa Randall A fairly well-known string theorist, as these things go. 8.05 / 10
3

Steven Weinberg Nobel Prize winner for his contributions to the electroweak interaction theory. 8.00 / 10
4

Edward Witten Best known as the creator of M-theory. 7.61 / 10
5

Sheldon Glashow Shared the Nobel Prize with Steven Weinberg for his contributions to the electroweak interaction theory . 7.11/ 10
6

Kenneth G. Wilson Was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1982 for his “constructive theory of the renormalization group.” 7.02 / 10
7

Steven Gubser A prominent string theorist, concerned largely with gauge-string duality. 6.83 / 10
8

Alexander Markovich Polyakov Russian string theorist, currently at Princeton University. 6.10 / 10
9

Igor Klebanov Another string theorist, working out of Princeton. 5.33 / 10
10

Juan Martín Maldacena Best known for his discovery of what’s sometimes called the “Maldacena duality,” or AdS/CFT correspondence. 5.33/ 10

The Digital Footprints of American Nightly News’ Most Recognizable Faces

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Some are proper news anchors, and others are commentators with a decided editorial slant. Some have recently left their jobs, and others have only just begun theirs. What unifies the names on this list is that they all belong to people who would spring to most Americans’ minds immediately when talk turns to “nightly news” (well, contemporary – as of June 2011 – nightly news, in any event).

The gentleman topping our list – at 77 years of age, and comfortably outside the prime demographic for such activities – is not an avid social networker. A very recent, and very high profile departure from his longstanding anchor seat is likely what nudged him to first place. Ms. Couric, in second place, in addition to grabbing headlines lately due to her own departure from her anchor seat, is a rather net savvy sort; having in fact tweeted no more than 3 hours prior to our typing this very entry.

Is there a television news source we overlooked, or a nightly host/anchor you’d have preferred to see included? Let us know in the comments.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Jim Lehrer The, as of very recently, departed anchor (and co-originator) of PBS Newshour. 9.16 / 10
2

Katie Couric The very recently departed anchor of CBS Evening News. 9.15 / 10
3

Anderson Cooper Host of Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN. 9.00 / 10
4

Bill O’Reilly Host of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. 8.52 / 10
5

Scott Pelley The brand new anchor of CBS Evening News. 8.15 / 10
6

Diane Sawyer The anchor of ABC World News. 8.12 / 10
7

Rachel Maddow The host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. 8.10 / 10
8

Brian Williams The anchor of NBC Nightly News. 8.01 / 10
9

Matt Frei The soon to be departing anchor of BBC World News America 7.01/ 10

The Digital Footprints of the Top Female CEOs

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Today’s list may cause, for some of you, an internal conflict to arise. Excited though you’ll rightfully be to see the PeekScore blog celebrate women who’ve risen to top of their professions, you’ll wish we weren’t also simultaneously (if only incidentally) endorsing your pet enemies of capitalism and the corporate power structure. Well, progressive reader, perhaps because we love the company for which we work, or perhaps because our own CEO (while admittedly male) is a hell of a nice person, we do not share your prejudices nor sense of regret. The fact remains, however, that even at this late date far too few women are ultimately running things (even though – as we’ve pointed out previously – they comprise over half of the species being run), and we do share in your feelings regarding that not seeming quite right. We don’t feel we’re being especially preachy in bringing this noteworthy fact to light, and we suspect that at least half of our readership will be inclined to agree.

Anyway, in keeping with our frequently choosing to stay out of things, we offer no opinion on these women nor upon the companies they lead. Some of these women are a bit beleaguered, some are nearly unconditionally celebrated, but the unifying fact is that they’re all in charge. Few, if any, have all that much of a social media presence, but they’re all newsworthy, and all high profile. As such, their PeekScores suggest a definite presence here in cyberspace, even if they’re too busy wheeling and dealing to tweet their days away.

Are there any female CEOs we overlooked? What are your thoughts on this list? Heck, what are your thoughts on anything at all? Let us know in the comments.

Rank Picture Name Company PeekScore
1

Carol Bartz
Yahoo
 9.48 / 10
2

Indra Nooyi
PepsiCo
 8.66 / 10
3

Andrea Jung
Avon Products
 8.38 / 10
4

Ursula Burns
Xerox
 8.22 / 10
5

Ellen Kullman
DuPont
 8.09/ 10
6

Angela Braly
WellPoint
 8.08 / 10
7

Irene Rosenfeld
Kraft Foods
 7.40 / 10
8

Beth Mooney
KeyCorp
 7.10 / 10
9

Lynn Elsenhans
Sunoco
 7.10 / 10
10

Patricia Woertz
Archer Daniels Midland
 7.00 / 10
11

Carol Meyrowitz
TJX
 5.37 / 10

UPDATED: Which 2012 Republican Presidential Candidates Have the Largest Digital Footprints?

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

Although the 2012 presidential election is still some time away, Republican candidates – possible, presumed, and announced alike – have begun to emerge as the stage is being set for the first primaries early next year. This entry is our second installment of a regular feature here on PeekYou, where we rank the GOP candidates according to their PeekScores (you can read the first installment here).

Since our last update, the changes in PeekScores have not for the most part been overly surprising. There have, nonetheless, absolutely been changes; most notably and simply, the majority of the candidates have seen – to varying degrees – an increase in their scores. This is in part due, no doubt, to the ramping up of the media coverage of all things 2012 Election. All of the men and women listed below (whether still in the race, or already having withdrawn) are finding their names mentioned ever more frequently as the days and weeks pass, and their PeekScores seem to be in a general way reflecting this.

The most notable change from our last update to this, perhaps, is the new PeekScore and list ranking of former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, and popular radio host, Herman Cain. Over the past month or two, Cain’s national media presence has increased significantly, as he’s started to make the publicity rounds and begin down the campaign trail in earnest. Relevantly to his PeekScore, the internet pundits – of all political persuasions – have particularly begun to notice him and take his candidacy seriously.

We’ve added a number of candidates to the list this time around, as well, in the hopes of measuring the race in its full breadth. If there’s anyone you believe we should also include, please let us know in the comments. And please check in regularly to see how the PeekScore race is shaping up.

Quick Disclaimer: As is probably the case in most workplaces throughout the country, the political inclinations of the PeekYou staff run the gamut. These rankings are entirely objective and impartial.

Rank Picture Name PeekScore as of Last Update Current PeekScore
1

Donald Trump (dropped out)
10.00 / 10
 10.00 / 10
2

Sarah Palin
9.35 / 10
 10.00 / 10
3

Paul Ryan
NEW
 10.00 / 10
4

Ron Paul
9.78 / 10
 10.00 / 10
5

Newt Gingrich
9.78 / 10
 9.92 / 10
6

Mitch Daniels (dropped out)
9.22 / 10
 9.23/ 10
7

Tim Pawlenty
9.03 / 10
 9.15 / 10
8



Mike Huckabee (dropped out)
9.04 / 10
 9.07 / 10
9

Herman Cain
8.58 / 10
 9.01 / 10
10



Mitt Romney
8.88 / 10
 9.00 / 10
11

Michele Bachmann
8.32 / 10
 8.35 / 10
12

Scott Brown
NEW
 8.23 / 10
13

Rick Perry
8.14 / 10
 8.14 / 10
14

Rudy Giuliani
NEW
 8.10 / 10
15

Rick Santorum
8.06 / 10
 8.09 / 10
16



Lindsey Graham
8.05 / 10
 8.06 / 10
17

Gary Johnson
8.02 / 10
 8.02 / 10
18

Thad McCotter
8.00 / 10
 8.00 / 10
19

Jon Huntsman
NEW
 7.58 / 10
20

John Bolton
NEW
 7.37 / 10
21

Buddy Roemer
7.02 / 10
 7.23 / 10
22

Jimmy McMillan
NEW
 7.07 / 10
23



Fred Karger
6.68 / 10
 6.73 / 10
24



Roy Moore
NEW
 6.40 / 10
25

Andy Martin
NEW
 6.29 / 10
26



Vern Wuensche
NEW
 6.19 / 10

The 14 “Funny People” with the Highest PeekScores

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

This list is an interesting one for us as it gets right to the heart of what PeekScores are, and illustrates what kinds of stories they can actually tell. They don’t tell us who’s the most famous, or the best. They tell us who is – at a given moment in time – making the most impact here in cyberspace. We went through all the highest PeekScored profiles (all of those with a PeekScore of 10) – of all of the 250,000,000 people PeekYou has indexed – and assembled a list of the 14 comedy-related folks with the highest PeekScores. Make no mistake, we are not suggesting that a single person on this list is even a little bit amusing (although we are hardly insisting otherwise either; opinions on each vary throughout the palatial PeekScore offices). We are only acknowledging that it is the intention of every single person on this list to be funny, in their professional works, a majority of the time.

The incredibly tech-friendly Stephen Fry‘s number 2 finish speaks a bit to the PeekScore’s (and therefore the web’s) lack of national bias. While known in the states, he’s hardly anything approaching as well known as the folks between whom he’s nestled on the chart. In the U.K., however, he’s a household name and regarded as something of a national treasure. He’s on this list most of all, though, for his enormous Twitter following – from wherever they may originate – and his generally formidable online presence.

Many comedy legends and superstars are nowhere to be found, while more niche and cult performers dominate the list. Your mom, or even your co-worker, might never have heard of, say, Michael Ian Black, but 1,620,245 Twitter followers have. PeekScores don’t care how funny, or even conventionally famous, you are. If you have a million people following you on Twitter, then in the world of PeekScores you’re Richard freakin’ Pryor.

Who would you have expected to see higher? Who are some of your favorite comedians? What “funny people” do you follow on Twitter, or “like” on Facebook? Talk to and/or at us in the comments.

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Ellen Degeneres Likable talk-show host, and stand-up comedian. 10.00 / 10
2

Stephen Fry World-class wit, renowned polymath, respected performer, and generally fascinating guy. 10.00 / 10
3

Jimmy Fallon Former SNL cast member, and late-night talk show host. 10.00 / 10
4

Conan O’Brien Late-night talk show veteran. 10.00 / 10
5

Chelsea Handler Stand-up comedian and talk show host. 10.00/ 10
6

Russell Brand British superstar, moderately well-known elsewhere, stand-up, actor, and general “personality.” 10.00 / 10
7

Jim Carrey Massive movie star. 10.00 / 10
8

Joel McHale Host of American cable network E!’s The Soup, and star of the sitcom Community. 10.00 / 10
9

“Weird” Al Yankovic Veteran pop song parodist, and pop-culture satirist. 10.00 / 10
10

Kevin Smith Filmmaker, podcaster, and narcissistic raconteur. 10.00 / 10
11

Penn Jillette One half of the comedy-magic team Penn & Teller, and generally blustery “personality.” 10.00 / 10
12

Stephen Colbert Host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report 10.00 / 10
13

Michael Ian Black Sketch comedian, stand-up, and talking head on countless cable “list” shows. 10.00 / 10
14

Dane Cook Obscenely popular stand-up comedian. 10.00 / 10

The 10 Pop Musicians with the Highest PeekScores

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

This list could not be simpler. Basically, of all the 250,000,000 people indexed in PeekYou‘s database, these are the 10 pop musicians (or, indeed, active musicians of any description) with the highest PeekScores.

Who would you have expected to see higher? Who are you surprised to see so high? What musicians do you follow on Twitter, or “like” on Facebook? Let us, the good men and women of the PeekScore blog, know in the comments.

(We know that some of the commentary below is repeated from previous entries. Cut us some slack, man; not everyone reading will notice.)

Rank Picture Name Bio PeekScore
1

Britney Spears Remember when all that crazy stuff happened with her and her untimely, oddly heartbreaking demise was accepted as an inevitability? Yeah, that was pretty weird. I guess it’s all okay now, though? That’s good. 10.00 / 10
2

Rihanna We’ve got no problem with Rhianna. Her records are usually okay, and we read that she does a lot of charity work for sick kids, which is pretty swell in PeekYou’s book. 10.00 / 10
3

Taylor Swift We’d never in a million years have predicted that Taylor Swift’s career would know such longevity, and in fact we took her limited shelf-life for granted. Looking through this list we see a few artists who are now approaching middle-age as superstars, whose enduring appeal also once to us seemed an impossibility. In other words, what the hell do we know? 10.00 / 10
4

Lady Gaga While not as charmed as we once were, we still have no problem with good old Stefani. She remains pretty a-okay in our books. 10.00 / 10
5

Ashley Tisdale Before compiling this list we’d never heard of Ashley Tisdale. Apparently she’s not only a huge star, she’s been one for a little while. Go figure, and good for her. 10.00/ 10
6

John Mayer Whatever. 10.00 / 10
7

Jessica Simpson Wasn’t she supposed to do a record with Billy Corgan, or something? Did that already happen? Did anyone care? I’m not sure that we do either, so we’ll just move on. 10.00 / 10
8

Mariah Carey We and Mariah, of course, go back like babies and pacifiers. That goes without saying… She had a breakdown at some point too, right? Not as spectacular as Britney’s, but something went on there. 10.00 / 10
9

Sean Combs We watched Diddy perform on American Idol, a year or so ago. He had these huge strobe lights flashing frantically throughout the performance. Watching it on high def TV, we actually became nauseated. That was oddly impressive, and subversive in its way; whether deliberate or not. 10.00 / 10
10

Chris Brown Mr. Brown seems to be a young man with some issues, and a man who has exhibited some behaviors of which we do not approve. We’ll let the matter drop there, however, as we’re not sure we want to tangle with him. He has a tendency to respond to talk of his violent temper in rather dramatic and terrifying ways. 10.00 / 10

The Digital Footprints of the Cast (and Creator) of Torchwood: Miracle Day

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What is PeekScore?: PeekScore is a rank from 1 to 10, assigned to every person. The higher someone’s score, the “more important” they are on the web. In calculating your PeekScore and updating it often, PeekYou takes into account your known presence and activity on the Internet, including but not limited to; your blogging, participation in social networks, the number of your friends, followers, or readers, the amount of web content you create, and your prominence in the news.

In 2005, Welsh television writer and producer, Russell T. Davies – fresh off the enormous success of the BBC’s revived Doctor Who, for which he was the head writer and showrunner – announced that he’d be making a Doctor Who spinoff which would be more “dark” and “adult” than the family oriented Who. Torchwood, what the promised spinoff was called, premiered in the fall of 2006 and ran to great success on the BBC for two full series, and one five-episode mini-series. It is to premiere its fourth season, entitled Torchwood: Miracle Day – for the first time as a British and American co-production, between the BBC and American cable network Starz – on July 8, 2011.

In honor of our anticipation of this series, and in acknowledgment of the Internet’s huge part in contributing to the program’s success outside of the U.K., we figured it would be fun to put the cast through the old PeekScore ringer.

Are you a fan of Torchwood, or of Doctor Who? Do you prefer one to the other? Are there any other “cult” TV program casts you’d like to see us put through the PeekScore rigors? Let us know in the comments.

Rank Picture Name Role PeekScore
1

John Barrowman Captain Jack Harkness 8.45 / 10
2

Alexa Havins Esther Drummond 8.01 / 10
3

Russell T. Davies Creator / Showrunner 7.77 / 10
4

Eve Myles Gwen Cooper 7.40 / 10
5

Bill Pullman Oswald Danes 6.75/ 10
6

Mekhi Phifer Rex Matheson 6.31 / 10
7

Lauren Ambrose Jilly Kitzinger 6.17 / 10
8

Kai Owen Rhys Williams 5.88 / 10
9

Tom Price Sergeant Andy 5.41 / 10
10

Arlene Tur Dr. Vera Juarez 5.23 / 10

It was not necessarily all that great a surprise when British television institution Doctor Who was brought back by the BBC after a 16 year absence from regular broadcast. What was a surprise, however, was that this revived version wound up being a brilliant, BAFTA winning, critically-praised, big, fat, big bootied megahit, and a “prestige” program of the sort the original show had never even aspired to be. Not long at all after the first season of the revived Who finished airing in 2005, Russell T. Davies – seizing upon the opportunities afforded him due to his heroic revival of this once believed dead BBC property – announced that he had a spinoff show in the works. This new program was to feature the roguishly handsome, ambi-sexual Doctor Who companion Captain Jack Harkness (played by musical comedy vet John Barrowman), as the leader of “a renegade bunch of investigators charged by the British government to find alien technology that has fallen to Earth.”

Torchwood (the title, an anagram of Doctor Who) was promised by Davies to be a “dark, clever, wild, sexy… paranoid thriller.” The program that wound up airing in fall of 2006 – while filled with sex, violence, and profanity, all right – was rather conspicuously puerile and adolescent in its mentality, and patently silly in its character development and plot contrivances. For its “adult” pretenses, it was in most important ways (character, story, intellect, emotion) a more immature program than its parent show. It was all the same entertaining, and it proved to be quite popular. A slightly improved second season aired in 2008, but came with its own set of problems (namely, a new found propensity for ponderousness and pretension). The program really came into its own, though, and finally delivered on Davies’ original hype, with its summer 2009, five-episode mini-series (which aired on five consecutive nights) called Children of Earth. While not entirely absent the preceding two seasons’ lapses into ludicrousness which stretched the boundaries of one’s ability to suspend disbelief, the miniseries was overall a chilling, thoughtful, and sincerely challenging story, and by far one of the most satisfying television experiences of its year.

On the heels of Children‘s success – and now with Davies free of his showrunner duties on Doctor Who (having left that job in other, capable hands) – this newest American co-produced season of Torchwood was announced. As he likes to do, Davies has bandied about words such as “dark” and “brilliant” to describe it. I suppose that soon enough we’ll know if he speaks any truth. We, along with many geeks around the world, and most notably and vocally throughout cyberspace, will be watching regardless.