Comments on: Twitter’s friend strategy is not a popularity contest

By: dzennan

dzennan — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:57:35 +0000

I actually agree with you completly.
- Twitter, Blogger, Gogle whatever or Youtube…. You get to them, or they try to spam you ( there are few real followers, readers, etc….) still,
…
I like your rules.
cheers from France
Dzenan

By: stormy

stormy — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:24:58 +0000

I went through all the people I was following at once, so I created the criteria as I went.

By: Jack Repenning

Jack Repenning — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:22:12 +0000

Interesting list of rules. Do you really consciously work through that checklist? I had started filtering my followbacks a while ago, though I haven’t got such detailed criteria. I do use one test you don’t mention: I don’t bother to follow-back people who *only* reply, and only with comments inscrutable to anyone not already in the conversation. If all they’ve got to say is “@whoever yeah, me too” and “@mssilly you said it,” then it doesn’t seem like I’m likely to get much out of the “conversation.”
So I guess my informal rules boil down to two:
1. Looking at their recent tweet stream, does it catch my interest?
2. Looking at their recent tweet stream, does it threaten to overwhelm my?

By: Christopher Allan Webber

Christopher Allan Webber — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 14:03:19 +0000

Speaking of which, whatever happened to your identi.ca account? It’s gaining a lot of traction now. Free software and free network services ftw

By: stormy

stormy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:46:50 +0000

It can be a popularity contest. But I don’t think it’s a very good one and it’s not one I try to compete in.
I also don’t compete with how many friends I have or how much email I have and certainly not how many sex partners!
I certainly wouldn’t consider someone a loser because they had fewer twitter followers than me. I’d just assume they use twitter differently than I do. For example, if I only twittered about my kids, I’d have far fewer followers, but that’d be ok.

By: stormy

stormy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:45:08 +0000

More power to you. I kept a few people who follow more than 1,000 because they have conversed with me.

By: stormy

stormy — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:44:36 +0000

Yes, I meant following more than a 1,000 – fixed now.

By: Benjamin Otte

Benjamin Otte — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:36:46 +0000

Isn’t this just like any popularity contest? You try to have as many friends as you can, because having many friends means you’re famous? It’s the same thing as the amount of friends in real life or “How many emails do you get every day?” / “How many sex partners did you have in your life?” type questions. It’s a bit more dangerous, because it’s on the Internet and everyone can see when you’re a loser.

By: Courtenay

Courtenay — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 14:31:18 +0000

I follow 1,000+ people and am certainly not a spammer or product marketer. I utilize TweetDeck as a means to filter those I follow into groups and topics.

By: Francis Siefken

Francis Siefken — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 09:34:15 +0000

“But if I didn’t know the person, had never heard of them except through twitter and:
They had more than 1,000 followers. (They obviously can’t follow/talk to all of them. I know from personal experience.)”
having > 1000 followers is something one doesn’t have control over, why unfollow someone just because he’s popular? Perhaps you meant following > 1000?