Thursday, April 17

StopTwitterSpam, and my 'argument' with Scoble

This morning I learned of a kick-ass new anti-Twitter spam ("Twam" -- thanks Mark Delfs!) site this morning.

When I mentioned it on Twitter, and mentioned my stand on Scoble's mass-adding formula -- aka, a formula for Twam -- Robert Scoble engaged me in a bit of a heated discussion.

Stop Twitter Spam picked it up and reproduced a good chunk of it (I may tweetscan later to rebuild it in its entirety).

Apparently because Scoble and I have differing opinions, I simply have not thought about the topic enough. According to Scoble. Who, after being unable to "win" this "argument" he started, "ends the discussion" and stomps off like a toddler who got told no cookie.

Robert Scoble == Amanda Chapel? (Strumpette) They both seem to thrive on ad hominem "conversations" that get all twisted when their repeated shouting of their opinions on top of someone else's fails to "win" the "argument" or debate they've engaged in.

6 comments:

Michael O'Neill said...

I was able to gleen Scoble's shallow intellectual nature within a few posts. He's like a E! reporter on the web.

Kathleen said...

... and I saw it go down LIVE, via Twitter.

I'm interested in this conversation. If we are the early Twitter adopters, does that mean that we should be looking forward to an exponentially increasing number of follows in the coming months/years as more users enter Twitter?

I know you make it a policy to look at everyone's profile because you care about other people.

You are frustrated because, more and more, that means exposing yourself to a spammy Twitter profile.

Do you think at some point it may not be feasible to look at every new follower's profile, especially for people like me, casual Twitter users?

I find that, when looking for new people to follow, I rely on eavesdropping on my Twitter friends' conversations.
If the other person sounds intelligent, I will follow them on a trial basis.

I also have a specific type of person I want to follow - either a local, a wine industry professional/blogger or a PR type (my personal passions).

As a casual user, I can't follow hundreds of people, it drowns out actual friends (including you) on Twitter.

For instance, I tried to follow Mr. Scoble, but it was simply too many tweets per hour! It's like having every TV and radio on all day in the search for the 'heartbeat' of the Internets.

So, what's your advice on 'following' twitter-etiquette for casual users?

KathleenLisson

Andrew Badera said...

Kathleen:

Unfortunately it's already close the point where checking the profile of every follower is more than a reasonable chore. That wasn't the case prior to Scoble going off on his "you suck if you don't follow a metric craptonne of people" campaign.

Following ettiquette? Follow whomever you'd like. Follow whomever you find interesting. As long as your page reflects a fair, reasonable balance of @-replies, as long as you're not linkspamming or promoting yourself in an obnoxious fashion, as long as you're not mass-adding hundreds or thousands of people over a relatively short period of time, I think you're in the clear.

Andrew Badera said...

Thinking about it, that's probably not what you were asking, was it Kathleen?

You are dead-on with the 'eavesdropping' to follow -- that, in my mind, is 100% what it's about.

Another great way to find people is through blogs and sites you read already, where they've linked their Twitter profile.

Every now and then asking others for some "good" new follows can turn something up, but I think the act of following is, or at least should be, something personal, and quite often, your likes and dislikes may not mesh with the people you're asking, making the process less useful.

Michael O'Neill said...

I reviewed your discussion. Doing so has convinced more than ever that Twitter is an exercise in noise over signal.

On top of that, it appears to function as some sort of high school popularity contest.

I'm so finicky for signal that I rarely subscribe to feeds that update more than three times per week.

So you can imagine how little interest I have in Twitter.

But it is funny as hell watching you scrap with the blowhards of the world.

- Cindy - said...

I think that this argument /discussion is more a difference in values than anything- quality versus quantity. You seem to me to be a quality person- someone who'd rather hang out with a few people and have in depth discussions. Quality people are about reflection and not about keeping score. Scoble seems to be the quantity guy. He'd go to a party at someone's house advertised on a flier and try to say hi to as many people there as possible without really getting to know anyone. People like this are about life as a competition and being right and popularity contests. There's nothing wrong with that type of person, it's just not me, not how I view the world and go about things. I think the unquantifiable things are what make life worth living. One real connection means so much more than 100 'hi how are ya's. That's as much true on the internet as it is anywhere else.