To me it is quite clear – FOLLOW means to listen = read what those I follow say. Otherwise there is no sense for following someone (as to me).

I agree there is no point to listen to everything that everybody says – and that is why we are able to decide who (and how many accounts) will be followed. And if an element of discovery is needed – then usage of Twitter search can be even more usefull.

Anyway. I like the fact people are different and wanted to have the other view.
Thanks for your thoughts.

So many people are producing so much content these days that it is unrealistic to try to keep up with it all. All we can hope to do is get a net into the water now and again and scoop up what happens to be passing by at the time. That doesn’t make that information any less valuable. In fact, the element of discovery is part of what makes the process so interesting.

Active Twitterers use services that permit them to send the same message several times so that a larger percentage of their followers will see it. Still, they know that maybe 5% of their followers, at best, will see any given message at any given time. The key is repetition, retweeting and selective delivery to the people you know can spread the message for you. This is a science that is still being developed, but it’s impressive how quickly it is evolving.

Nice take. One question: How can you follow 1150 Twitter accounts? How can anyone be able to follow more then 50 accounts (or 100 max.)? What FOLLOW means to you?

I follow 16 accounts (twitter.com/kolco) and those post more then 120 high quality tweets a day (99% containing links to other sites – looks like Twitter is another kind of bookmarking service). Let say, I might be more interested in half of them only – this means I need to explore 60 links. Again, let us say it takes me 5 minutes to read one article behind the link (plus discussion and sometimes videos, or clicks to other supporting materials). This would have taken me 5 hours a day!

Ok, let us say it takes me only 3 minutes to read that article… it is still 3 hours a day… which I cannot afford to spend on Twitter only… I believe NO ONE can (unless you are paid for Tweeting and for reading tweets). So If you FOLLOW 1150 accounts on Twitter you might get cca 2000 Tweets daily to read (maybe even more). If 4 and half minutes takes you to read 100 tweets then it must take you 90 minutes a day to read ONLY YOUR TWITTER INBOX… then how long do you read the interesting links you find… (just a question).

Based on above formulas and hypothesis I would like to ask you once again:
What FOLLOW means to you?

Ferdinand

Hugh

I use it for following interesting people. On the sending end, I use it for a very specific purpose: To broadcast scores and results from candlepin and duckpin bowling tournaments — basically nothing else. True “narrowcasting,” no doubt about it — but a few dozen bowling fans are able to get real-time information not available from any other source, and basically impossible until Twitter made such real-time narrowcasting possible (and easy).

Yeah, as in any new medium — e.g., radio — there’s a lot of tweeting-for-the-sake-of-tweeting going on. If you look at the history of radio in the early days, a lot of companies had radio stations because it was something new and they thought they had to get on board, for some reason. Eventually, the industry figured out how to make it useful. Same thing with the Web — it progressed from brochureware to company news, to e-commerce. The mainstream columnists need to stop complaining and start actually using the thing.

It also helps me as an editor to see what topics my audience is interested in and then be able to give them more information about those topics via Twitter and my website.