Ken Gibbs Jr says:

seems like anyone with a publicist can make the list, which makes sense. Until Twitter recently started suggesting who to follow, it was as blank as a search engine. You'd follow people that you already knew from TV, radio or print, and the occasional tech celebrities (of which there are few black ones). So this list isn't a surprise. I also don't think the list reflects who holds sway over the black community, as I'm pretty sure most of these people have really diverse followers. If anything it shows that not much has changed for black men in American (with the exception of Obama), because black athletes, musicians and comedians are still getting the most attention.

Rahsheen says:

What's dangerous about the way the discussion seems to be moving is that this list is a reflection of reality and nobody seems to want to own up to that. This is a list of most powerful people based on influence on Twitter. The criteria are very specific. It's not a list of people you should follow or people you should listen to. It's a list of people who are already being followed and who already have a voice.

I find it dangerous because, while nobody wants it to be the case, these are the people influencing the black community as a whole. If Diddy or Weezy tweets “jump,” millions of their fans will only ask “how high.” Pretty sure others being suggested or who are missing from the list don't hold that kind of power.

I'm just not understanding how you can argue against reality. If you say the list could have been expanded to show those with less influence on Twitter who might actually be interesting to follow, that's one thing, but to say that this whole list is bogus because you don't like who is influencing our community or to say they're not actually influencing anything on Twitter is ludicrous.

On another note, what's with this assumption that those who are already famous, popular, or influential can't also be that on Twitter? What @baratunde (yes, let's keep picking on him) does besides Twitter is not important. The point is that he made the list and stands beside Obama and TI. You want to knock him out the box because he used tools and opportunities besides Twitter to get where he is?

Don't get upset at a list. Don't get outraged at a blog. Get upset at the fact that we as a whole are (still) not promoting the right people or, on the flip side, engaging with people outside of our own bubble.

markusrobinson says:

@Lynne these are all great methods, and I appreciated you listing them, I would love to give them a try, but I'm not so convinced that they would yield such different results.

Jason says:

This whole thing is flawed because it treats every follower, and every retweet, and every listing as equal. They’re not.

Being followed by 1 million 14-year-olds who are still in school and will retweet everything that their favourite sports star says does not necessarily make a person more powerful or influential than somebody who is being followed by 100000 30 to 50-year-olds who themselves are in a position to make actual changes in society, business, or politics.

The above is an example of two extremes, but it illustrates the point.

Today's Drum says:

What does this list say about our society, our culture and our future?

markusrobinson says:

1) I don't disagree with you. My point was, what other metric would you use to judge influence/power/or whatever? In the same vein, if you have 1 million followers but don't say anything worth being re-tweeted then you don't have influence. So if followers isn't the right metric and until we can make better sense of the fire-hose of tweets (working on this too) then I think re-tweets is a pretty decent judge of influence considering what we have to work with.
2) Who's to say that using a nomination/voting process wouldn't lead to a popularity contest? Not to mention coordinating a fair and impartial voting system is not simple task (remember I've worked on the black weblog awards for a few years). The point is, there's no true way to build a list like this without a people ruffling some feathers. We chose what we thought was the most impartial system at the time. Please keep in mind that the purpose of this was to start a discussion and judge responses. The response is clear, but this is only the beginning of the conversation. We will refine and improve as we go forward.

Donatella says:

Wow no Davey D.
And why is DJ Khaled on this list, Paula Abdul who isn't black was on the womens list

Kevin Lockett says:

I really should be 100.5 since Lebron is now spending part of his time in Akron, which makes me Akron's Most Powerful Black Men on Twitter LOL

http://www.twitter.com/kevinlockett

http://www.kevinlockett.com

http://www.lockettmedia.com

Lynne d Johnson says:

Sure Markus. But, I have two questions — maybe more.

1) Because someone is a celebrity (be that tech, social media, rapper) aren't they more likely to be RT? And, does them being RT actually mean power, influence, whatever? Or does it just mean that they're famous and we like being as close as possible to the famous (not we, you and me, but collective universal “we”) — Does that mean power, or influence, or does that mean famous? And are we defining famous as the same thing as power?

2)And no, you're right, I can't argue with numbers. You've laid it all out here, but it's already been admitted to me that some people may have gotten through the cracks because they weren't on the radar. In that light, as BlackWeb20, “the premier destination for African-American’s in Technology and New Media,” is this the list you want to offer to the community as to who is most important for them to follow or know about on Twitter?

My point on #2, even with numbers/science (using Klout and TwitterGrader), this list could've been carved differently. I think I already mentioned a nomination process and a categorical listing. Maybe not everyone would've been 100 on TwitterGrader or 50 on Klout, but they may have been the top in their industries. (Same goes for your women's list). .

I guess the reason I keep speaking out is because this list only categorizes one aspect of black power on Twitter. I again applaud your efforts here and starting the conversation. Hopefully, people make more recommendations on both posts for you guys to consider in the future.

markusrobinson says:

Lynne if you could suggest something other than Klout and TwitterGrader to grade power, influence, or whatever, we're open. But when judging a person's influence on Twitter, what better method than to use the amount a person gets re-tweeted? If i have a million users and never get re-tweeted, and you have 8000 and you get re-tweeted often then you're more influential right?

Lynne d Johnson says:

Right, but Anjuan you have to consider that Baratunde has had offline opportunities (as has Toure) to help catapult him to some of these successes and they've both been written about frequently. Not to dismiss either of their twitter game — they are interesting on Twitter indeed, but this list is overwhelmingly made up of people who barely had to do anything on Twitter to rise to the top. Let's be real.

Again not dissing you. I'm just curious, in your use of TwitterGrader and Klout, if you could not have also found some regular folk to represent on this list. And in that regard, I'm not even counting Baratunde or Toure as regular folk because they are media personalities and not just media themselves. I applaud your efforts, but is llcoolj a better Tweeter than say, Elon James? Many of these people use Twitter solely for promotional reasons or to talk to other celebrities and not to engage their audiences at all.

I do realize you guys chose “powerful” as opposed to “influential” or “engaging.” But if you chose influential or engaging, perhaps you could have brought in some qualitative insights into this list/discussion.

markusrobinson says:

Not sure why people are upset with the list, numbers don't lie. The real question is why do we pay so much attention to entertainers and athletes?

DryerBuzz says:

Should we keep in mind that the male list as compiled today might have much to do with the tools deployed by twitter as opposed to a year ago. With the influx of African Americans in the last year, I can see the following being celebrity/baller driven. Seeing is believing. After all, twitter recommends the list of males and almost offers automatic following upon signing up. Same goes for the new profile recommendations. There is also the influx of tv shows deploying twitter and tags as a communication tool for fans and followings.

iluvblackwomen says:

Again who is the person/entity determining influence i wish yall would stop saying anyone can rise above. If all of Twitter voted for a guy to win a Shorty Award in the category of Technology i would suspect thats power and impact yet according to the determining factor he is in the 140 most powerful Black Men??? no way i am sorry thats is wrong plain completely wrong LOL – @SoliderKnowBest beat WIRED magazine for the TOP SHORTY AWARD in TECH on TWitter LOL. If people really tried to be impactful/powerful to be determined by these standards they would have to ON TV or ON MAGAZINES – even @baratunde who i would call a friend and @tonygaskins they are both in the media in fact Tony has been on Oprah. I would dare say unles s the standards are widen or changed NO ONE will ever top the 100. Even missing @mrdaveyd who is on radio each week and placing him in the top 100 would not give most Black Men on Twitter a chance. Bro DaveyD is a member of NetRoots, on West Coast Radio weekly has interviewed Tupac, Biggie and some of the biggest names in the last 20 years. Again the standards appear to be skewed to those ONLY in MEDIA.

Anjuan Simmons says:

Alfred, as a lifelong fan of Black Enterprise (and honored to be featured in the July 2010 issue), I truly appreciate your perspective. I do want to be clear about the definition of “power” used on this list. It does not imply presidential power or the power to do good things. While those types of power are important, I could not find an impartial way to measure them. If an online tool exists to measure true power, I would be happy to make lists based on it.

This list measures Twitter power. That means these are people whose tweets are retweeted by hundreds if not thousands of their followers. If they tweet a link, then a massive number of people click on it. Their use of Twitter is covered by the media such as Ochocinco's (#31 on the list) $25k fine for using the service during a game. I used Klout and Twittergrader because I didn't want these lists to simply note “black people I like” on Twitter. If I did that, then the list would have been very different. It also would have been of little value.

I looked at hundreds of black male twitter users to find non-celebrities who met the criteria for the list. Many worthy ones didn't make the cut. Honestly, there were some I neglected to measure after hours of going through many Twitter handles and pictures. However, part of the point of this list was to elicit “what about so and so” responses. These responses make this admittiedly imperfect list a little more perfect based on the healhty discussion that we are having.

One thing I hope the readers take from this list is that even people like Baratunde who lack a national celebrity platform or the skills of a professional athelete deserve to be seen as powerful. I would love to make a list of 100 Baratundes once I find them on Twitter.

Let me be clear. I want to make these lists better. I've come across several names that I've added to a list of missed people to measure if the editors decide to do an updated version of the list. I would also applaud Black Enterprise's investigation into who are the truly powerful black Twitter users. The comments on this post shows that there is a lot of work to do and many as yet unearthed truths about influential black people on Twitter.

Anjuan Simmons says:

I did the best I could to find non-celebrities. I even went through a fair number of the followers of @tweetmeblack. Unfortunately, many of them scored very low and even fell out of the top 200.

Anjuan Simmons says:

I did measure Ben Jealous (or the Twitter id that seems to be him). His Twittergrader.com grade was 99.3 which did not meet the criteria for the list (a grade of 100). Cory Booker had a Twittergrader.com score of 100, but his Klout score was 48 which put him out of the top 100. He was in the 140 range.

That being said, the process was meant to be fair and impartial, but it is not perfect. However, I WANTED people to say, “why isn't so and so on this list”. This demonstrates the diversity of what black people are doing on Twitter.

Alfred Edmond Jr says:

As much as I enjoyed seeing the 100 Most Powerful Black Women on Twitter list, I am just as disappointed in this listing of “most powerful” black men on Twitter, even though, to be fair, both lists share the same yardstick. That the list is dominated by athletes and rappers (most of whom tweet content of dubious value) reinforces an old media cliche/stereotype that persists even in the era of new media. Speaking as a follower of many of these brothers, only a handful of them (including President Obama, Russell Simmons) are truly powerful; a larger proportion (LeBron James, RevRunWisdom) can claim any degree of influence. The vast majority of the rest are followed because they are famous, not because the wield any degree of influence over their followers. The truth is, this lists measures popularity, which is only a measure of influence (and not even the most important one), not true power. It seems that black men cannot escape the stereotypical mythologies imposed on them by society even on Twitter.

That said, much respect to anjuan and BlackWeb2.0 for consistently defining and bringing attention to the presence, influence and impact of people of color in social media, and the digital media and communications space as a whole. My disappointment in the outcome of this particular list does not supercede my appreciation of the need for this and similar lists to be produced and shared.

Nukirk Digi.tal says:

This is the most powerful men list? Really?

First off, they are all people that the majority of America already knows. The women list featured women from all walks of life. But the men's list features mostly rappers and ballers. I was hoping for people slightly above my level (CEOs, business men, journalist, doctors, personalities that are not well known) like baratunde or even ToureX.

This is slightly more disappointing than the female's list. The only thing good about the list? No one will complain if the men are 3/4's or half black. They seem to like to question the women.

But you don't hear me, tho.

baratunde says:

woohoo! i'm officially a powerful black man! take that, institutionalized racism!

Anjuan Simmons says:

Thanks! These lists are fun to put together, and I take the criticism along with the praise. The good thing about a measure of Twitter power is that this list can easily be very different is I compiled it three months from now.

Anjuan Simmons says:

As I said to Delmar, that, unfortunately, are the people we could find with the highest scores. However, anyone can rise to the top of this list if they effectively use Twitter as a platform for their talent. Baratunde is an example of that.

Mark S. Luckie says:

Kind of sad that this list is dominated by rappers and ball players. SMH.

Anjuan Simmons says:

The great thing about Twitter is that it's possible for anyone to rise to the top of this list. It's a matter of being interesting, networking, and having a consistent platform. We should encourage people of color to use tools like Twitter to extend their reach and gain the ability to influence perceptions and gain opportunitites.

Maria** says:

I am sorry is this list is bullsh**t…..