So it truly is already using the Authority/Importance elements of the person sending the reply just like PageRank uses the PageRank of the page creating a link to calculate (in an iterative fashion) the PageRank of the page pointed to.

Do you calculate multiple times until it converges or is it a one time calculation based on the current twitterank of the tweeps sending the replies.

Thank you,

Bill Austin

Actually, the algorithm is slightly more complex than that. It also takes into consideration who the replies are coming from, and how important they are (their twitterank is obviously one possible signal to consider).