Twitter is Hot, iPhone apps on Twitter are Hottest

We’re into hotness here at AppStoreHQ - our Hottest Apps list tracks iPhone app reviews in every leading tech and mobile app blog around the world to tell you at a glance which apps are getting the most attention right now. But Twitter’s a whole different animal when it comes to hotness. It’s still kind of the wild west out there - the sheer volume of tweets is staggering, and a disappointing share of them are posted by bots in an effort to game the platform as a marketing tool. But most Twitter users are real people with authentic voices, and an absolute *ton* of them own iPhones.

Since our mission in life is to help you find the best iPhone apps, we knew we needed to wade into the unruly mess that is Twitter and come out with a clean list of the Hottest Apps based on the global firehose of tweets. And we knew we’d have to do it differently than we do for blogs, because the real-time web lives by different rules. We’ve been tinkering with our approach for a while behind the scenes, learning from the example of others who have gone before us, and we’re proud to announce that our Twitter Hottest list is ready for action.

Tired of reading already? Go here: Hottest Apps on Twitter

How does it work?

Step 1: Monitor Twitter for tweets that include *any* of the following words / hashtags:

  • appstorehq / #appstorehq
  • iphone / #iphone
  • iphone app / #iphoneapp
  • iphone apps / #iphoneapps

Step 2: Follow the link included in the tweet until it resolves. Store any link that resolves to *either*:

  • an iTunes link, or
  • a link to an AppStoreHQ app detail page

Step 3: For each tweet that meets the above criteria, assign a score based on:

  • the number of followers, and
  • the ratio of friends to followers.

(Note: we’re indebted to The Hype Machine for their early work on this, and our scoring algorithm is modeled in part on theirs).

Step 4: For each unique app, add up all the scores from each related tweet to calculate which apps are the Hottest according to the Twittersphere (is that a word yet?)

How can you play?

Just tweet a link to any iPhone app listing on AppStoreHQ (or use its iTunes link) and it will alter that app’s position on our Twitter Hottest list. You can also check your Twitter score on the page to see how many points your tweet adds to the total.

(Please Note: we’re always on the lookout for Twitterbots and list spammers and have some automated filters already in play, but if you see anything fishy on the list please let us know so we can banish the offenders).

As a reminder, we tweet the Hottest App in the Past 24 Hours every day, and have now modified this to include our Twitter calculations, so follow us to get your daily dose of hotness!

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