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The fact is that collectively these sites represent the minds of MILLIONS of people around the world.
http://searchengines.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/i...
Of course, you can still search for certain accounts to see who voted for what if you want to narrow your focus
By only using the sites you mentioned, you are limiting yourself to just a chosen few in your clique
It's definitely NOT an efficient approach for the masses, but it seems to work for Robert.
In the same way, I don't think following 6000 RSS feeds makes any sense at all efficiency wise for me, and the approach you recommend and similar approaches make far more sense to me.
It provides a contrast I like with tweets I have seen counting followers out loud such as "I will donate xxx if I get to 500 followers tonight".
Sure I understand if you're a band on MySpace. Number of followers reflects on your brand.
But what is precious on Twitter for me is that it is a social network where I am experiencing relationships. It may be my delusion but it feels like that.
Even when I am accepting followers for Singelringen, I do take the time to vet friend requests on MySpace and elsewhere. This is to protect my friends. I don't want to expose them to profiles I don't trust.
I'm new to all this. I'm recently returning from Japan where we were surprisingly behind on hooking into social networks. I was well networked into the First Life world so I didn't miss a second one. But I am very glad to have discovered Twitter as this network has been one of a few great transitions home.
@lindasherman
just how much time are you spending following half a thousand people around these services? do you really *know* these people at a meaningful level? (random pictures and one line twitter posts don't seem all that conducive to knowing people -- definitely not 500 of them...)
Delia
P.S. it all sounds rather silly to me... (sorry if I'm wrong) D.
I enjoy following you. Keep truckin'
I must say Alert Thingy appears better presented to me than Twitter4Skype. Any thoughts?
You're following 20k people because of the attention it brings to your 'persona', in reality you're getting device updates from a much smaller (as in, realistically followable) group of people (under 1000 I assume). Clever.
if you follow people who have access to the primary sources of history - like a Whitehouse shutterbug - then there is a chance of disintermediating the traditional press and getting a look at the first draft of history at half a remove I suppose. Twitter hasn't grabbed me but I can see how that might be interesting.
"Keeping up to date with industry news is important, but probably not as important as actually contributing to the industry."
...which struck a chord with me.
And would you please stop pretending you are a fuckin' sociologist/social psychologist?
Let's face it, the interactive nature of the Web means that what we want to do most of the time is *talk*, whether that be through blogging, commenting, posting to social networking sites. Twitter is primarily a tool for listening, and sure it kind of falls down on functionality and purpose if all you're doing is checking out how your friends are "feeling a bit tired today" or similar. But following high quality posters and business leaders can help you be first on the buzz for topics, get the earliest links to new blog posts etc.
Sure it's still interactive, but it's more about providing you with information that you providing the world with your thoughts.
http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/
As for Andrew Baron selling his twitter account, well I followed him, and as soon as I saw he was selling, I removed him ;)
I define myself on Twitter and friendfeed by the persons i follow. Because: It defines what i'm interested in.
Still, i need to judge. There's many persons who's opinion i'm interested in... on the other hand there's this "number of tweets per hour" rate that controls who/what i follow.
It is mainly a limitation of my Blackberry and the Twitter Clients available on it i guess. Would the iPhone solve this? Don't know. Would a macbook solve this? Not with german dataplans for Wifi ;-)
I see Twitter as nothing more than the year 2008 version of CB Radio ...for BlogStars (and their groupies)... here's why:
First, you see Twitter through the lens of a BlogStar - not my Mom and Sister (who have no need for sources, tips or breaking news). Just as casinos make the lions share of profits from grandma and the slot machine....social media gets the lion share of their users from people like my Mom and Sister. And they don't get Twitter...
Second, Twitter has numerous "deal breaker" flaws that I'm not sure they'll ever fix:
a. It's incredibly difficult to see who's who. What most people are doing is "making friends" with a catchy icon or someone who posts a few one liners. There is also a pretty good hype going on with many BlogStars throwing out "you should follow" edicts to their groupies. Weird.
BlogStars would love that you "just follow who I say".
And to get the most out of Twitter, you pretty much have to follow who they say -- because it's damn near impossible to find relevant info on your own.
b. Following entire conversations is nearly impossible (Yeah, I know how cool Friendfeed is - I listened the last 20 times you tweeted it. I know about Quotably).
How quaint in this age that I have to use 10 add-ons to equal one "social experience". Yet BlogStars repeatedly fail to draw any attention to this big shortcoming.
c. Talking back to those you follow is near impossible - leaving a comment on a blog will always be FAR superior to trying to @scobeleizer through the vast noise that is the Twitter timeline.
Don't believe it -- try replying sometime. But don't do it from a recognizable twitter account. Then come back and post your experiences.
d. My all time favorite signal that Twitter is topping out is that I've started to see BlogStars pompously proclaim "tell me why I should follow you".
Talk about the beginning of the end.
You make it out like your way of using Twitter is the ONLY way.
Yes, I'm over the 1k mark on both sides myself. I love Twitter. I love connecting with people. I love the eventstream/newsstream aspects of it. I get as much information through Twitter, if not more, as I do through Google Reader or its ilk.
That said, Twitter doesn't serve the same purpose, meet the same need, for everyone who uses it. Yes, I agree, following tons of people, interacting with as many people as possible, maximizes its value to ME. But you, me, doesn't make a majority. Nor do we represent lowest common denominator.
Plenty of people use Twitter to stay in close touch with a small number of friends. I think that's great for them. But then you have those people who post in their bios "if you follow too many people, I'm going to block you!"
I think both perspectives are obnoxious. Use Twitter however you'd like to use Twitter. Use it because it's fun. Use it because it's educational. But don't use it because Robert Scoble told you to.
And please, PLEASE people -- stop with the mass adding. Scoble's formula for gaining followers is nothing but an ego boost -- yet Robert, you seem to be saying "Twitter shouldn't be about ego." Add people because you find them interesting and informative. Add people because you'd like to get to know them. Don't add them to get your follow count up, it's obnoxiously spammy.
I like Scoble's emphasis on numbers, to reach a critical mass, but also on quality over quantity. Quantity without quality is just noise. It is, as the expression goes, "a whole lot of nothing". Quality with quantity is real power. You have a cross section of really influential people to draw upon and from.
All I can say is WOW. Following people on Twitter makes you none of those things Scoble. You cannot have a meaningful relationship with 500 people on Twitter. Meaningful relationships that challenge you emotionally and intellectually take time and patience and effort. One way twits are not conversations, they are IMs that only stroke the senders ego in an effort to add importance or gain some attention to whatever task he or she is doing at that moment.
I actually wrote about what I characterize as "Twitter's branding problem," but it plays into exactly what you are describing above...
http://www.leveragingideas.com/2008/04/13/twitt...
But that's not for me. I'm just a tourist here, I don't mind if my rumors are a few days old. I'm glad you follow the mad hurly-burly crowd; it means I don't have to.
(Sorry for all the metaphors.)
More here on this post where I describe how I cobbled together what, for me, is the ultimate twitter client:
http://tinyurl.com/5azd7b
I don't always tune into GReader and if tweets can carry similar meaning perhaps it's a new space but it seems like the stack is just getting higher. So I read 3 dozen tweets in 1/10th the time I read 3 dozen articles in my GReader pool, but, those tweets simply add to the reading/consumption list.
It's about time. Increasing my conversation is usually a good thing, but, it's the quality and relevance of that conversation in my simple life that matters. That's how come I keep wondering how Twitter will reach beyond the current mass of a-lister puppy dogs.
OK, Robert -- I'd watch that. (I just hope I'll remember to check for it...)
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
A true leader can be defined not by those who choose to follow him/her but by those he follows himself.
There is the reason there are followers to those who those that chose to follow "up" to gain insight. Follow those who you like to see what they are doing and follow those with great insight will give you a greater and more beneficial experiance. Balance it!
Great article!
cheers
http://evolvingwe.com/design/defining-user-perc...
the day this ever applies to me, someone please unplug my computer and open the window.
Global Warming Alarmists Beware... www.EvilCarbon.com
Excellent points, Robert.
I would not have it any other way.
I have been adding people from different countries that I either speak the language of with a degree of fluency or I am studying. As a linguist this allows me to pick up on changes and nuances in these languages by people who are native or regular users of these languages.
Plus looking at Arabic, Hebrew and Cyrillic scripts on here is cool. Mix in some French, Spanish and Catalan and I start to get quite a worldview or cacophany if you like, Babel even.
I have also added news services from different regions and am finding that I am getting news reports as they happen before the major wires are giving the full story.
I heard about Twitter when it first started but it didn't seem applicable to me at that time. I later joined it and tried to get a few friends and family on it. It was nice to have a new way to communicate with them but they all haven't seemed as enthusiastic about it as I have and fair enough.
However reading an article on Silicon Wadi led me to a whole series of clicks that has me using Twitter in a completely different way and in fact probably quite close to what Robert has described. I have about 50 people following me but I am following in theory about 500 twitter accounts although I would say that maybe a third of those are active.
Yes some people say you can't do it and if you have more than 500 people you are just clicking to add people and therefore don't want to be 'friends' with you. As long as they allow me to follow them I am still getting the insights as described above.
In a couple of instances this has been a little frustrating I would not have minded a conversation but that is as it may be. In one instance someone asked for their new followers to identify themselves and the only way to do that was to click on the link they provided to Facebook. That I didn't actually feel inclined to want to add them as a Facebook 'Friend' although I did say hello provides some indication as to order of priority.
One 'twit'? asked me how I had located their profile but didn't add me as a friend. I replied simply by stating I had entered cities and countries in the provided search boxes and added those who I thought had something to say. I am sure I will have more to say on this in the future. Probably 2 minutes after I submit this but... ;]
I'm barely beginning Twitter but already have an interview lined up with Noah Glass. Why? Because Twitter has been developed to help people connect minds, ideas and more. And I've only been twittering a week... great post.
Will Twitter have to go with a 'groups' approach? Where you can group users... and then how does the top level UI change?
Or maybe my brain is too small to process x conversations at once. That's probably true independent of the comments I made above.
I fired off one @message and then 5-6 directs at her. She gets them to her cellphone, we are a few timezones and a continent apart. So very cool twitter function amongst all the other networking. It's also personal.
I have been tracking some social media trends on my blog as well, and have a track-back setup for you as well over at http://www.changeforge.com/2008/04/17/scoble-on...
Keep up the great thoughts. It's tough following the volume of your posts, but these little gems are worth it.
You can't build worlds only on having the 2 or 10 percent of content producers acquire followers.
And that's all you're doing, is mining the millions of Twitterers for the ppl who make content. The examples you supplied are all professional content produers. While it's true you have lots of guys named Joe fooling around in their garage in Dubuque, Iowa, took, you couldn't expect to mine their occasional insight to keep yourself from being bored forever.
Everyone who has ever been on a MMORPG or Virtual World knows that the 10 make for the other 90. Will Wright always talked about this. It's a kind of law. Perhaps social media bumps this up *a tiny bit* to make *a few more people* content providers. It enables amateurs to get a look-see. But, ultimately, there are vast quantities of consumers, looking for content, and you can't pretend you are dining out on gazing at the infinite reflection of them following you as really satisfying just because it makes you feel altruistic.
- Isn't that why it's called social networking?
great post. It's all about engaging people. What u put in is what u will get out of it. I started following you on @CoachDeb recommendation.
Enjoyed reading your Israel tweets.
Your quote sums it all up:
"If you define yourself by who is following you you’ll always feel inadequate. But, define yourself by who you are following and you can really build something of high value."
Ann Rusnak
"The Time Diva"
Thanks for this post. Nadine Touzet
On Twitter I'll follow back most people, except for the obvious "friend collectors." As my Pownce list has grown, I've become a bit fussier. I aim for slow growth there because I don't want to have so many friends that I can't keep up with, and reply to the threads. I guess you have to fine-tune the strategy to each community.
But really the difference between social media and regular Web sites is the direction of communication. We're not just pushing content out on these sites, if we do just that we'll be ignored. Instead we're sharing our ideas, consuming the ideas of others and sometimes having a conversation in the process. That can't be done with a tiny friends list. It needn't be as large as yours, but I do think you need to reach a certain saturation point in order for the dialog to happen.
And while some are skeptical of your ability to manage such large lists, you're also quite good at replying to Tweets, so somehow you are managing which shows that it must be working for you.
p.s. I saw a few people mentioning FriendFeed which is a cool tool, but I've recently started using http://www.socialthing.com and found it's another great way to keep track of multiple accounts in one location. Quite handy even if managing smaller groups than yours.
I've just did some catchup (use to follow, then left, now I'm back) on your blog reading. Keep you the great work.