It’s been nearly a year since I first posted to Twitter (ironically enough, given the content of this post, about information volume).
Of all of the web services that I use, Twitter is the hardest to explain: many people, even relatively clueful friends and colleagues don’t get it. To me, its value is three-fold. Firstly, the microblogging aspect is great for those times when I’d like to capture a moment or thought, but wouldn’t necessarily have the time or inclination to fire up Wordpress and write a full blog piece. Secondly, it’s a valuable means of communication with friends, sitting at the confluence of the web/IM/SMS Venn diagram. Finally, Twitter has been a means to make and cement friendships with people I might not otherwise have met.
However, I’m beginning to feel as though Twitter has passed a tipping point for me and is no longer as useful as it once was. As with all social networks, it boils down to people: as Jemima Kiss recently observed in passing, “it takes months to build up, or curate, if you like, a really useful, relevant and manageable group.”
The manageable aspect is fundamental. Discounting RSS feeds syndicated to Twitter, and other automatic updates, the forty seven people in my network have generated over 600 updates in the last twenty four hours — not an atypical level of traffic — and the volume is such that I can’t keep up with it.
The immediate solution which springs to mind is to prune my network back to a manageable level (dead-heading seems far too unkind a term for it). But doing so inevitably means that the people I know least will be the ones to go. This time last year I didn’t know @sizemore, but through Twitter I’ve come to know someone with whom I’ve enjoyed fascinating conversations, both online and in person. Without following someone who was initially a stranger, I wouldn’t have started experimenting with QR codes, or had lunch with Jessa from Bookslut. So I wonder what I might miss if I start cutting back my network.
In the meantime, any thoughts on achieving a manageable Twitter network would be very welcome.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Sizemore // Apr 16, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Tricky.
I have almost 900 souls under my care and around 1000 following me. Some of them have to go. Right now I tend to look up the people that I know will have said something valuable during the course of the day, but even that list of people is growing. A lot is getting lost in the noise.
But I’m also a big believer in following people outside my comfort zone. In fact some of my favourite people are now so far removed from me both geographically and in relation to ‘work’ that it’s generating a lot of thought in new areas.
I think I may have to cull not those that I have nothing in common with, but rather the people I already know really well and can second guess :)
Twitter certainly helped me a lot, but it’s throwing up a lot of problems that none of the third party applications have yet to address.
Gap in the market, people…
2 Neil // Apr 16, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Good article, and one that’s getting quite relevant for me.
I’ve decided that I’m just going to have to be ruthless, and audit my list down in a number of ways, all interlinked.
Firstly - when someone follows me, I tend to look at their profile and their Blog. If their Blog interests me - it’s worth subscribing to both Blog and Twitter. That’s then subject to audit - see below.
Secondly - even if someone is saying interesting things, if they’re not _responding_ to the conversation on Twitter, then they’re probably not worth following. Especially key to this rule are the people who ask questions on Twitter. The questions are often profound - but if you don’t respond to people when they answer your question, you’re not adding to the conversation.
Thirdly - though it feels inherently impolite to do so, I think we need to be quite ruthless with Twitter contacts. If they’re not adding to the conversation, or if you’re not establishing contact with them, then it doesn’t hurt to unFollow.
There may be more to this - writing this down, I’m thinking of more ideas as I go, so I might use this as a base for a Blog piece.
Thanks for the inspiration and the thought-provoking post!
Neil
3 AKA // Apr 16, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Fascinating stuff, and something that I’ve been thinking about in the last couple of weeks. I make a deliberate effort to try and keep things out of my twitter stream that could otherwise turn up in my RSS reader (like news alerts, etc.), and try and keep it down to actual people that interest me for whatever reason.
It does take a while to strike the balance between signal and noise in the list of people you’re following, and I’m always adding and removing people to get the right balance - there are a hardcore few that are constant, but there is a lot in flux too.
Not sure that there is an answer to it - maybe Twitter is buckling under it’s own success - but that’s not a bad problem to have.
4 James // Apr 16, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Currently following: 109
Was surprised at that number, but looking at that list, ten or so bots aside, and 10 or so who haven’t updated in ages, they’re almost all real people about whom I know a couple of things, or have had some interesting exchange with.
Followers: 208
I don’t auto-follow people back, but I do check them out. Spammers I block immediately, and I only tend to follow back people who are in London, people I know, or people who’s URL link or set of followers interests me.
I have no qualms about unfollowing people if their volume or content annoys me. I’m pretty easy to contact, so if this bothers anyone they can get in touch pretty easily.
I would never be able to handle 1000 followers. I’m pretty much at the max now. I treat Twitter as a mix of status update and IRC channel, and particularly as I frequently work from home or a one-person office I do like the chatter.
Twitter has been immensely useful and interesting to me, meeting new people and getting new business. It’s also fun, and despite occasional lapses I can’t walk away from it. It would be like shutting the door on a bunch of friends.
If it’s getting too much, get ruthless and un-follow people - and I’d suggest starting with those ‘big name’ twitterers we all follow. Knowing what the celebs are up to is the least valuable use of Twitter.
5 James // Apr 16, 2008 at 2:27 pm
And to follow that up, I’ve just noticed that Scoble is following me, and I’m not following him. Ha.
6 DarrenT // Apr 16, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Speaking as someone who resisted the lure of the Tweet for a good twelve months, only to have my new boss insist - insist I say - that I open an account, I’m still managing to keep track of the seven or eight people I currently follow… Just.
But it still sends a small shiver of dread down my spine when I spot anything in double figures on my Twitterfox counter. As if a couple of hundred (ruthlessly pruned) RSS feeds weren’t enough, already.
And I’ve already had to develop the habit of blocking a number of persons who apparently know the secret of long life, wealth and endless happiness already, but for some reason are still desperate to follow what I have to say.
So far, though, nobody has offered to enlarge my penis, either medicinally, mechanically or visually. Which makes a pleasant change.
7 George // Apr 19, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Thanks for all of the comments guys. Of course, the inevitable effect of writing about this subject was that about a dozen more people started following me on Twitter - so, as they’re interesting types, I now have a dozen more Twitter streams and a few new blogs to read . . . Oh well, sleep is pretty over-rated.
8 Alex // May 6, 2008 at 4:31 pm
I find twitter only works if it’s used in the most flippant manner possible. The more useful it becomes, the more useless it is.
I have about ten, er, twits I follow, and ten that follow me - the thought of getting 600 tweets seems like some kind of hithckokian nightmare.
I liked twitter when it was a diversion - but it scares me to think that there are people actually using it for work ;-)
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