Cool Tools - What is your Twitter grade?

HubSpot has launched what it is calling the Twitter Grader, which seems to be the now-defunct Tweeterboard reincarnate -- yet with a proposed business purpose. The grader allows Twitter users to enter in their screen names (and the names of others) into its secret algorithmic stuff generator and find out how each user ranks on the Twitter scale. Contrary to Tweeterboard, however, Twitter Grader isn't based only seemingly on popularity. It tracks engagement.

According to Mike Volpe, vice president of marketing for the interactive marketing firm, the grades are generated by taking the following into account:

1. Number of followers
2. Number of followers that your followers have (the power of your network)
3. Quantity and pace of updates
4. Additional proprietary analysis (this is the super secret algorithmic stuff generator part)

But aside from fanning the egos of Twitterholics (like me), what is the purpose of this tool? Volpe said that HubSpot launched this somewhat as a marketing tool -- as an alternative to advertising.

"We launched it because we have found that building interesting tools like this is a more effective marketing tool than doing advertising. Things like this get people curious and draw them in," he said. "We think that the site will build a lot of traffic quickly and cheaply, and we can promote other products and services there to generate leads and sales. This is similar to what we have done with Website Grader and Press Release Grader."

Volpe also says that the business gain necessarily doesn't have to only be HubSpot's. He claims that the Twitter Grader can be used to evaluate the Twitter power of potential employees in marketing and public relations roles as well as tracking a company or executives versus competitors.

Curious, of course, and as a bit of a Twitteregomaniac, I graded myself:

The catch? The tool only checks people against others who have already been graded. The database is quickly growing, however. I tried the grader right after it alpha launched yesterday around 4 p.m. ET and there were only about 375 people in the database. As of this writing there were near 8,000 users. Regardless, however, Volpe says the trending can still be useful even if all Twitter users aren't represented.

"I would guess within a few weeks, the Twitter Grader will have a large enough sample to make the grade pretty accurate," he said. "Sort of how you can do an election poll of a few thousand people and get a result within a couple percent."

What is your Twitter grade?