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.
AVERAGE PEEKSCORE: 9.07
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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
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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.
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