latimesblogs.latimes.com — A feature launched last month, called "suggested users," has given some accounts spikes in the neighborhood of tens of thousands. Some high profile users, who built their grassroots following but were ignored on Twitter's "suggested" list, are getting left in the dust.
Feb 20, 2009 View in Crawl 4
dsarnolatFeb 21, 2009
Did your RTA? It's observing precisely the opposite of what you're saying. It's not about innate Ayn Randian advantage, where only the strong survive. Rather, Twitter is intervening to artificially boost certain (mostly) corporate and celebrity accounts based on subjective and probably hasty criteria.If you think of followers as worth money--which they certainly are in some sense--then Twitter has chosen to funnel a bunch of money to a special set of users. That's where the question of fairness comes in, especially for a service that's prided itself on not messing with its own ecosystem.
kibibytebrainFeb 21, 2009
Plus, I have to sense irony in this. The internets has been on Twitter for even years now questioning their lack of innovation. They finally add a new feature and everyone cries foul.
Closed AccountFeb 21, 2009
True and well said. It doesn't matter how many followers you have or how many people you are following. What matters most is whether or not the people you're following are generating content that helps you in life in one way or the other.Just to cite a true real-life example from my own experience: I added X a few days ago, who likely has in-depth knowledge on Y. I followed him and asked if I should complete L before moving on to learning Y. He told me to save money by skipping L and directly moving to Y as L is totally redundant.Later on I call 7 local Y training schools and ask them to know if L is unnecessary for the career path I'm choosing. Every one of them replied in positive.Also, from time to time, X twits about interesting stuff that pertains to Y. This is the kind of person I should be following to know more about Y regardless of whether he follows me or not. New Twitterers' mentality should be like this. Pay more attention to who you're following and how you're communicating with him instead of mass-following people with the intention to be popular. It will only come back to hunt you.I basically don't follow back people who follow me unless 1) they kneel down and beg me to add them back 2) their content is so interesting and worth my time and salt that if they ever unfollow me in future, I wouldn't mind at all.
guinpenFeb 21, 2009
I guess we're conditioned by places like Digg and the app store to think that certain users gaining notoriety through the website admins itself is unfair, by causing more front-page stories or app downloads, but on a site like Twitter it doesn't matter at all, it's just for funsies.
critternycFeb 21, 2009
Call the waaambulance.
Closed AccountFeb 21, 2009
VC investment blackhole
interventionFeb 22, 2009
Nice! Twitter is awesome. Follow me here: <a class="user" href="http://www.twitter.com/thefilmstage">http://www.twitter.com/thefilmstage</a>