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Restricted Following for Higher Productivity
September 4th, 2008 by StephenPosted in Brainstorming, Digital Apps, Links, Productivity |
Welcome back! It's good to see you again. Please note that I am now publishing all new material at my hub site: StephenPSmith.com
Jared at Technotheory has too many people that he follows on Twitter. He wrote an interesting piece where he thinks about methods of grouping, hi-lighting, or restricting the updates that he gets to only see the most relevant. See ”Fake Following” to avoid information overload in social networks
Personally I’m not just interested in restricting connections’ updates, but also in highlighting the updates of others. There are a few people who I want to stay in touch with but often don’t notice amidst all the noise (on Twitter, Facebook or Flickr, for instance).
Another feature on FriendFeed’s beta would help with my situation: grouping. Grouping allows you to display the updates from a specific group of connections, and no one else. Unfortunately Facebook and Twitter are where I’m most interested in this capability.
What do you think? Is it possible, is it meaningful, to follow 1,000 posters on Twitter?
If you found this post useful, please share it with your friends on Twitter using the tinylink http://tinyurl.com/5fxvkn. Thanks, I appreciate it! Feel free to comment below, I enjoy discussing these ideas. ~@Stephen
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September 4th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
I think it depends on what you use Twitter for. If you have a lot of time to devote to your network (for example, if you are a recruiter), then sure, 1,000+ posters could work for you.
For me, following 1,000 people on Twitter would be overwhelming - I’ve found that if I have too many contacts on a social network, I don’t have enough time to focus on developing any relationships.
Similarly, I just cut down on my RSS feeds, so I can focus on just the blogs that really interest me. How do people find the time to stay on top of so much information?
September 5th, 2008 at 7:57 am
I suspect that many of the people that follow lots of others are internet pros, meaning that they are simply online all the time, keeping their fingers on the pulse.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Thanks for the link, Stephen. I do question how people process so much information. But my guess is that they don’t digest it all…they just skim much of the time.
There’s a value to headlines, and there’s value to deep connections. Finding which sources you’re okay with skimming/missing and which ones you want to get deeply involved with is a delicate balance…especially if there’s not a technology like RSS which can easily facilitate the distinction.
Twitter is one of those places where 1000 people is unrealistic and in some ways useless…but it’s okay so long as one can find a way to actually keep tabs on the people who are most interesting to them. I’ll let you know if I figure out how to accomplish that.