I’ve been having some issues with my Twitter usage of late. It became apparent recently that I could only cope with following about 150 people, especially now folks are more comfortable with using Twitter and are posting to it more and more. A few weeks ago I was trying to keep tabs on nearly 300 and it was unsustainable. I might as well have been following no-one. So I made some hard decisions and unfollowed a whole bunch. Suddenly Twitter because usable again for me, and I’m glad I did it, but it would be nice if I could check it on the others once in a while. Given that over 600 people (and a few robots) think I’m interesting enough to follow there’s a good chance I’d find them interesting too. Not every tweet, of course, but just to check in once in a while, ambient-style. And, more critically, I’d like to be able to open up the Direct Messaging system to more people than I’m able to currently follow through @peteashton. Ideally I’d like Twitter to implement a “silent following” option where we’re able to establish a connection without having to read each others tweets. There are plenty of people out there who I think are interesting but whose Twitter usage is not of interest to me. This seems fair to me. I have good friends whose blogs I don’t like and blogs I read written by people I would never want to sit in a pub with. What’s important is the social graph.
So with this in mind I’m going to try an experiment. If you’ve recently been followed by @petemonitor here’s how it’s hopefully going to work.
I will continue to post as normal to @peteashton. I will not post to @petemonitor. So following both will not add to your Twitter stream.
If I see something of interest in the @petemonitor stream I will reply through @peteashton.
If we have a mutual following via @petemonitor you will be able to Direct Message me.
The 150 or so people I follow through @peteashton will fluctuate as I add and delete folk depending on the situation (ie at SXSWi I will add a bunch of new people but only for the week). @petemonitor will, effectively, be a pool from which I populate @peteashton.
If you follow @peteashton and you’re not a robot or spammer the chances are I’ll follow you back on @petemonitor.
These rules will change as I actually start using the system. I just felt it would be handy to have them here to explain why a seemingly dead account was following you.
This has nothing to do with @ash10 or @grumpypete. I’m still figuring out how to use the former and the latter is force until itself. Yes, I know I’ve already got @peteashton2. I just forgot about it until I’d done all of this.
Eventually this’ll all settle down and we’ll look back and laugh…
Can you reply my email please? …(voice from the ancient world of communication)
Good idea, altho i’m sure i’ve heard there is a silent follow app somewhere in the twitterverse?
Well, there’s http://twittersnooze.com/ – which lets you mute certain people’s tweets for a period of time.
I don’t really understand anything you’ve written in this post but I’m sure it’s a good idea.
@martin: Thanks for the confidence, however blind it may be.
@sue: Sorry mum. Am on it.
@Fiona: Twittersnooze is potentially useful in the short term but simply automates the unfollow / follow which doesn’t help with the “DM but not read tweets” issue.
@Donato: I think the only way you could do silent follow with an app would be to parse the feed through a whitelist before it’s rendered by an app. Not ideal for a number of reasons.
It sounds like you’re aiming to ’stratify’ your followings. If there’s a clear context for some of them (e.g. SXSWi) then you might consider them as particular form of ‘crowd’ according to a blog post I did a short while back.
@Si: Yes, but, not really. I’ve always been wary of slotting people into groups and have been thinking a lot about what I’m calling “communities that bleed”. One of the great things about Twitter is how it created incredibly solid communities without the need for group-style boundaries. Everything is held together by the social graph. If I start putting folk into subject-specific camps then I potnetially lose that flexibility. Maybe.
When someone develops a tool that lets you merge and query the social graphs in your Twitter network I might be able to develop this further.
i’ve done something kind of similar, i have a private account which pretty much follows ‘real’ folk and the other one is a busier stream. it’s been pretty easy to watch both streams too.
Intrigued! Do keep us up to date on any revelations or effects/results (especially unanticipated ones!)
Z
It would definitely be more useful if tiers were embedded in Twitter, after all, your way makes people aware of whether you think they make the cut. [And as soon as you start the culling can I make it clear I was distraught at being labelled second class]
Also isn’t it a bit of an unequal relationship?:
“If I see something of interest in the @petemonitor stream I will reply through @peteashton.”
But they won’t be able to DM you back…unless they make the extra effort of searching for your alternative name…
The problem with Twitter is that everyone wants extras, but if everyone got the extras they wanted it’d no longer be Twitter… Surprised there’s not a client though..