Comments on: What I Miss About Twitter

By: Trae

Trae — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:11:39 +0000

I have to completely agree. I have been trying to think about how to explain Twitter to friends and family in a way that it wouldn’t annoy them not to have many followers. People (just like Facebook) begin to equate self-worth to the number of online friends/followers. I don’t mind only having 44 followers. And I will only start following people that I have either a close relationship with or are interested in hearing what they have to say. I can’t imagine even enjoying Twitter and following 1000+ people…I’d want to rip my head off!

Good post.

Cases in point:Jonathan Coulton Following:66 Followers: 20,000+ ; Wil Wheaton Following: 90; Followers: 210,000+
If they followed everyone who followed them, I doubt we’d receive the content from these (as well as others) that we get today. All they have to do is filter out the @replies.

By: Twitter’s Value Goes Down as More People Use It - Thoughts on social media, the web and technology - jungleG

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:10:22 +0000

[...] Brian Shaler says in a post that following ten thousand plus people “destroyed my user experience”. [...]

By: Jorge Escobar

Jorge Escobar — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:23:21 +0000

I totally agree, Brian. I think the major fault lies in marketers that think Twitter is a broadcast tool. It is not.

But it’s up to us to filter, manage and improve the list of people we follow.

I posted some thoughts on this on my blog a couple of days ago: http://cli.gs/2869e2

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:48:26 +0000

JulieN, I don’t mind business people using Twitter at all, unless they’re trying to use Twitter exclusively to get business (e.g. Follow a tons of people to get leads).

Tim, I think there should be better tools that allow you to follow people who occasionally post good content and occasionally annoying content. Filters and stuff.

Jamie, It depends on how loose you define “something like it” :-) I’ve posted about Twitter a few times!

By: Jason Baer

Jason Baer — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:41:07 +0000

I concur. Twitter is becoming another inbox, and is losing the discovery component that made it so special. Like you, I’m struggling to reverse that trend, but not sure how to do so.

Thoughtful post, Brian. I hope to see you soon.
j

By: Jamie Martin

Jamie Martin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:06:43 +0000

Haven’t you posted this before? Or something like it?

By: Tim Daley - @Mabuti

Tim Daley - @Mabuti — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:44:14 +0000

I agree Brian. Although I am relatively new, joined about 11 months ago, I have found that I regularly go through who I am following to see if I want to continue to follow them. I currently only follow 40 people and it is reflective in my followers, 33. Even so I don’t really care because I follow people for their content, if it stinks then I un-follow. I think that many people get too caught up in who is talking about who rather than try to gain content from the service. I may be in the minority but I have zero concern for how many follow or talk about me.

By: JulieN

JulieN — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:29:35 +0000

An interesting and enlightening post Brian. Unfortunately, I never got to experience Twitter the way you did in the early days. How do you feel about the future of Twitter and is it becoming more business oriented as it grows?

By: brianlburns

brianlburns — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:21:58 +0000

Agreed, Brian. Even though the tools allow people to make it seem like they’re really keeping up, or really “interacting” with their feed… they are, by definition, doing the opposite. There’s no substitute for genuine interest or interaction, and in your case, no substitute for putting in the work to do so.

The more people try to find a way around it, the worse everyone’s Twitter experience gets. Bummer.