The app describes it as "a special equation combining the number of snaps you've sent and received, stories you've posted, and other factors", with those other factors sparking plenty of online theories about how to game the algorithm and inflate your score.
The restructuring of the pharmaceutical industry may be happening under the cover of the global financial crisis, but it was sparked by factors that are particular to the sector.
Relations with Mali's Tuaregs – estimated to comprise between 3% and 10% of the population – have been in crisis since Tuareg separatists were accused of killing Malian soldiers last year in the northern town of Aguelhok, one of the factors sparking the 22 March coup.
The Reading the Riots research indicates that a significant factor in sparking the disturbances was the humiliation, unjust suspicion, lack of respect and targeting that characterises the way rioters felt police carry out stop and search.
For example, without question growing world trade has been an important factor in sparking economic development in many poor nations; less happily, it has played at least some role in the growing inequality of incomes in advanced countries.
Correspondents say hate speech - often spread via text - was also a serious factor in sparking the violence after the 2007 elections.
Indeed, the British government's huge underestimation of how deeply the halt in westward expansion would be resented by the colonists was one of the factors in sparking the 12-year crisis that led to the American Revolution.
These factors are sparking, for the first time in decades, something approaching political conflict.
The X Factor sparked a £5m phone vote bonanza after more than 15m votes were cast during the course of the series won by Matt Cardle last night.
The X Factor sparked complaints of a fix surrounding Carolynne Poole's controversial exit after an executive was seen whispering in judge Louis Walsh's ear.
The seventh series of The X Factor sparked several heated controversies, with over 5,000 complaints registered with Ofcom throughout the series.
