Comments on: How will Twitter be governed? http://www.socialmedia.biz/2009/06/07/two-paths-for-following-back-on-twitter/ Voted the #1 site in covering news & trends in social media. Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:32:43 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 By: jdlasica http://www.socialmedia.biz/2009/06/07/two-paths-for-following-back-on-twitter/comment-page-1/#comment-8934 jdlasica Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:27:55 +0000 http://www.socialmedia.biz/?p=13527#comment-8934 Scot, I completely agree. I need to slim down the 1,500+ folks I'm following to a more reasonable #, but haven't figured out a method yet. Still torn between the two paths Stowe outlined. Scot, I completely agree. I need to slim down the 1,500+ folks I’m following to a more reasonable #, but haven’t figured out a method yet. Still torn between the two paths Stowe outlined.

]]> By: Scot Hacker http://www.socialmedia.biz/2009/06/07/two-paths-for-following-back-on-twitter/comment-page-1/#comment-8929 Scot Hacker Fri, 12 Jun 2009 01:12:10 +0000 http://www.socialmedia.biz/?p=13527#comment-8929 I am completely and utterly baffled by the mindset of people who automatically follow back anyone who follows them. I am interested in a portion of the web, not the whole web. And I am interested in what some people say, not what all people say. Every time you follow someone who doesn't tweet about things that interest you, you add noise to your stream. I can only imagine that the streams of people who follow everyone back blindly must be pure noise. Every unthoughtful follow-back degrades your experience of Twitter. When I look at the following/followees ratio of a lot of accounts, it becomes apparent that a LOT of people are following other back automatically, without checking first to see whether the person is worthy of being followed back. I find this amazing. I think what the Twitter employees mean when they say that they'll miss stuff if they follow too many people is that you can only consume so much in a day, and you start missing posts by people who actually do interest you if you follow too many. Personally, I think things start getting difficult when you follow more than 300 people (I've broken that limit and kind of regret it.) Less is more! I am completely and utterly baffled by the mindset of people who automatically follow back anyone who follows them. I am interested in a portion of the web, not the whole web. And I am interested in what some people say, not what all people say. Every time you follow someone who doesn’t tweet about things that interest you, you add noise to your stream. I can only imagine that the streams of people who follow everyone back blindly must be pure noise. Every unthoughtful follow-back degrades your experience of Twitter.

When I look at the following/followees ratio of a lot of accounts, it becomes apparent that a LOT of people are following other back automatically, without checking first to see whether the person is worthy of being followed back. I find this amazing.

I think what the Twitter employees mean when they say that they’ll miss stuff if they follow too many people is that you can only consume so much in a day, and you start missing posts by people who actually do interest you if you follow too many. Personally, I think things start getting difficult when you follow more than 300 people (I’ve broken that limit and kind of regret it.)

Less is more!

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