The Sunday Times Launches the Social List

LONDON, May 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- This week, The Sunday Times launched The Sunday Times Social List at http://www.the-social-list.com, a definitive and ever evolving list of who's who in the world of social networking.

Drawing information from the four biggest social networks - Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook - The Sunday Times Social List system adds up your social networking activity and measures how much interest it generates amongst your friends and colleagues in order to work out how well you score.

Says Gordon Thomson, Online Editor of The Sunday Times, "The Sunday Times has a strong tradition of publishing great guides and lists - and The Social List is our latest innovation, a dynamic, interactive chart which shows you where you fit into the new world of social media.  As social media continues to change the way people find information and interact online, so The Sunday Times Social List reflects the growing influence of bloggers and Tweeters on mainstream publishing and gives everyone the opportunity to pit themselves against their peers and climb the rankings of the most socially influential."

Jody Vogelaar, Head of News International Digital Marketing, says, "We are very proud of how engaged customers are with our journalists and content in the social space.  We have more than one million followers across our Twitter feeds -- a number that continues to grow each week. The social space is inherently competitive and we are taking full advantage of this by creating a fun and engaging piece of social entertainment that is very simple to get involved in."

Free to join, participants will simply need to link up whichever social networks they use and want to be included. Every morning The Sunday Times Social List  will make its calculations.

People's results will change daily as new people join and scores are updated.  

On the results page you can see a list of the top 2000 most socially wealthy people at any given time. You can also see how you compare with friends and colleagues who have also signed up.

To help people see where they are in the grand scheme of things, they are allocated a rank when they join and a badge that goes with it. This could change from 'Fledgling' through to the top spot, 'Titan', over time, depending on how well they are doing.

Created by VCCP, The Sunday Times Social List  was designed so that "Anyone can join in and take their place on the List - no matter how active or idle they are on social networks like Facebook and Twitter," says Colin Byrne, Creative Director. "We wanted to build on The Sunday Times' history of publishing definitive lists that become part of popular culture, but create a list that's not only useful, but something everybody can be a part of. It finally puts to rest the debate about which friends are the most active on Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook, and turns the everyday activity of updating your status and sending tweets into something far more competitive."

PRODUCTION CREDITS:

Project name: The Social List

Client: News International

Creative agency: VCCP

Creative Directors: Colin Byrne & Jim Capp

Agency Producer: Allan Ward

Copywriter: Damian Simor

Art director: Chris Boyd

Planner: Sarah Booth

Head of PR: Graham Drew

Account Director: Barney Ware

Creative Technologist: Andre Assalino

Further Information

The Sunday Times will not collect the details of content of Participants' Network activities.  The Sunday Times will only collect data about the number and types of Activities carried out connected to the Participant's account in order to calculate and rank for The Social List.

Points System

The Sunday Times Social List will award points to Participants for their Reach and Engagement ("Activity") across the Networks. Points are awarded based upon Activities that have been pre-identified and form part of the Points System. The Activities and points are then entered into the computerised mathematical function ("Algorithm") used to calculate the Participant's place and the overall Social List ranking.

Certain activities will receive higher points weighting under the Points System due to their perceived sociability or influential nature.

Points are not awarded for the number of Networks a Participant uses. Points are awarded only for Reach and Engagement (defined below).  A Participant can score as many points from Activity on one Network alone as a Participant who carries out Activities on more than one Network, provided overall Activity levels are the same in both cases.

Each new person who engages/ interacts with a Participant or a Participant's content in a Network will increase the points awarded so long as the interaction is one of the Activities.

The Points System shall be:

• applied uniformly to all Participants at any given time; and  
• recorded in writing, as shall the Algorithm.  

The Sunday Times reserves the right to amend the Points System and/or Algorithm at any time.  

Any amendments to the Points System and/or Algorithm shall not have retrospective effect.

Please be aware, certain Networks limit the number of updates that third parties such as The Sunday Times can receive and count. This is influenced by technical restrictions outside of The Sunday Times' control, such as a Network's sharing protocols or server capacity.  

Further questions

Contact: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/livehelp

SOURCE News International