in‧flu‧ence  /ˈɪnfluəns/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[in-floo-uhns] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -enced, -enc‧ing.

–noun

1.	the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others: He used family influence to get the contract.

Last night, I was chatting with an IBM developer that didn’t deal directly with the social media bubble we roll in.  He asked me a very honest question: “What is social media all about?”.  I gave the usual rattle about publishing, individuality and voice.  The follow-up question asked more to the role of influence in social media.

To some, influence is a numerical measure, more science than art.  Consider Steve Rubel’s post today:

For each top 100 list of local influencers we looked at: who are they, what they cover, how often they talk about multinationals/local companies. In addition, we zeroed in on the top 10 in each region to find out how often they link to each other, regional media and four key US media (CNN, NY Times, CNET, USA Today.) Here’s a snapshot of what we learned and a look at the lists (Excel file) - as of this week. The full results will be published later this year.

Indeed, influence is something that can be measured, maintained, and, perhaps, even bottled into new and interesting things.  Are we upon a new period of time where we can look at influence in a means other than by pure might (financial, political, social)?

With the right level of granularity, all forces are evident.  Just ask Van der Wall.