The Root’s 100 List Incorporates a New Ranking System Based on Online Influence

TheRoot.com has compiled their 100 influential African-Americans for the 2011 edition of The Root 100. But this year they did things slightly different.

The list consists of leaders from celebrities like Jay-z and Kanye West to politicians such as Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed as it has in past years. What’s new is that they have actually ranked them in order from 1 to 100.

To figure out the ranking, The Root staff took into account the number of mentions in the media, Internet search results and number of Twitter followers for each nominee. They also introduced a measure of substance, based on the judgment of editors to come up with an overall influence score.

Here are some of the influential African-Americans in the online and technology space that made this year’s list:

Tristan Walker (@tristanwalker) #39 : Businessman whose development skills helped Foursquare attract more than 10 million users.

Rashad Robinson (@rashadrobinson) #64: Strategist who is now executive director of ColorOfChange.org.

Angela Benton (@abenton) #74: Entrepreneur who founded NewMe Accelerator for tech startups.

Denmark West (@denmark313) #83: President of BET Digital Media who oversees the network’s online strategy.

Paul Q. Judge (@pauljudge) #87: Entrepreneur and scholar who is on a team conducting an online research survey on identity theft, spam and malware.

Dean Garfield (@ITI_TechTweets) #100 :CEO who participated in a congressional trade briefing on the impact of free trade agreements with Panama, South Korea and Colombia on the high-tech industry.

See who else made The Root 100 here…

Category: black media, Featured | Tags: African Americans, black people, clout, community, influencers, leaders, online, the root, The Root 100