Do You Follow Me On Twitter?
April 22nd, 2009
One thing that has really started to bother me since the advent of Tweetdeck is the fact that I can’t tell who’s interested in actually having a conversation, and who’s stuffed me into a filter and only follows me out of some… misplaced belief that a mutual follow will ensure that I provide them with my undying adulation. Thus I pose to you a social experiment: If you actually clicked on the twitter link to this post, and are reading this paragraph, either send me a private line, @ me or comment on this post, and I’ll put you on the list of “people who are actually interested in having a conversation”.
Everyone on that list gets followed. Everyone else gets dropped.
Yes, there are caveats. If I’ve never met you before in my life there’s a good chance I’m not going to follow you anyway, for reasons you’ll see below. Also if we’ve had more than a cursory set of @changes, have emailed each other regularly or (even better) have hung out in person you’re automatically on the list.
The true power of human communication is interaction, discussion and argument. It is not doe eyed consumption of what the latest celebrity has said, nor is it short-burst updates in the hope of being profound. It’s not link propagation, marketing, spin, advertising, or a long list of messages that boil down to “OMG I’m # away from ### Followers, Pay Attention to MEE!”. Human communication and true discussion requires time, effort, and thought, and cannot be acquired via txt messages or 140 character snippets. Think paragraphs. Think books. Think libraries.
Yes, it requires effort. It requires we meet, or have an email exchange, or talk on the phone, or have some kind of meaningful exchange other than “@krotscheck omg that picture is so cute”. Once that social vibe and comfort is established then yes, casual methods of communication (like twitter) are great ways to maintain it over distance, but you can’t do that just because you listened to their presentation at some conference.
If you want me to follow you, you have to convince me to care, and no small “follow” button or automated bot is going to do that. If you want me to treat you like a human being, to really listen to what you have to say, then you really should reciprocate.
Hypocrite? Not really. Listen, I give people day-to-day updates because I assume that they’re interested in what’s going on in my life. I use twitter for banter, not for a meaningful conversation or professional exchanges. Banter, by its very nature, assumes a level of familiarity you can’t just get from a website, and if I don’t feel comfortable bantering with you then yes, you’re not going to get followed.
I just pared down my list of folks I’m following for many of the reasons you’ve mentioned here. I’ll admit I don’t use Twitter to its full potential – not even close – but I do agree with you that its purpose is easy banter. Communication Lite.
Which reminds me – MAN – I haven’t seen you in a LONG time! Martini Club this month?
If I can, if I can. I’ve got a week-long conference booked on memorial day. It’s a pretty important semi-annual convention of the Beach Chair and Umbrella Drink Appreciation Society. I’m going to be in meetings alllll day.
Well, you know. When duty calls… Hey wait! I believe I have a lifetime membership in that society! Why did I not get the memo?
Great points! I got to this indirectly, from a dude that I follow. It seems that we run in the same circles … please don’t be offended if I start following you! No need to follow in turn.
I might just, I might just. Dug’s a good guy, though he’s not as active in the Adobe community as I’d like him to be.
I read pretty much everything that comes down the pike- I’m not as good about actually speaking up as I should be most of the time, but I try when I can focus long enough.
It’s not necessarily about speaking up on these posts though, Karl- it’s more about hanging out in person and being awesome
Interesting, but I’m not sure I agree. Twitter is for banter, sure, that’s a great reason to use Twitter. But I also love that Ed Sullivan can post regular bursts of Adobe Developer content, I love Grant Skinner’s random tweets linking to cool shit he’s developing, I like that the Columbus Underground tweets links to all of their stories -
There are a million things you can do with Twitter and it seems to me like you’re really limiting yourself with this approach. Of course, if you already have all the information channels you feel you need, then by all means keep Twitter for banter. But non-destructive filtering is always preferred – why not create a simple twitter client that feeds you only those updates from people on your banter list, while preserving your watchlist as a whole? OR hell, Tweetdeck probably allows you to do that with its search capabilities.
Anyway, just my two cents.
Twitter is a tough one – I think we start to expect instant responses, and it’s not ALWAYS feasible. When I got my iPhone I stopped getting SMS updates, and now my twitter response when I’m not sitting at the computer is a lot slower than it used to be.
As for tweetdeck, I freely admit that I use groups – you, sir, fall into the “real friends” group, which is column #3, right after “replies” and “direct messages”. While my twitter account is “professional”, I still feel a greater desire to engage with people I know in real life than those with whom I only share a professional interest.
There is also something to be said here for the classic signal to noise problem. Twitter has a this amazing tendency to let you allow more and more noise in you signal in the form of random people with something to say. The noise on twitter and the internet is constantly evolving so it’s important to adjust your filters on a regular basis. I think going threw your friends list on all services (and your RSS feeds) is important. If there is to much noise in you signal you are going to start missing important signals.
Now as to how you filter, totally removing sources of noise can be a little severe. However since twitter doesn’t have native groups and you can’t sync tweetdeck settings across multiple computers (to my knowledge) dropping followers is probably one of the best options.
I need to filter my list soon. Don’t worry you’ll probably make the cut.
@Isaac – supposedly tweetdeck is working on group sync across computers