[Air-L] Who to UnFollow

[Emma Duke-Williams]

2009/7/1 Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu>:
> There is also the approach of buying followers.  I keep seeing online ads
> that for something like $50 you can buy 500 followers.
>
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Dave Karpf <davekarpf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
 Compare those to
>> twitter-via-laptop or -desktop and you have a completely different user
>> experience.  I never used twitter until I downloaded tweetie, because I
>> found it a less-appealing distraction than facebook and a couple of favored
>> blogs and discussion boards.  With the mobile client, I now check twitter
>> while waiting in line for coffee or sitting at a red light.  Mobility and
>> platform have a huge impact on how I'm experiencing the medium, and that in
>> turn shapes my normative opinions about how people should and should not
>> use
>> the medium.

I've read this thread & the one about "Trivial Twittering". As others
have pointed out, what's trivial to me, mayn't be trivial to others.
Also, most of the people who I've heard to grumble about twitter being
full of trivia about breakfast are generally using that as a reason
not to use it - rather than those that have used it.

Someone else also mentioned getting annoyed about apps that post to
twitter; I've not installed any, nor do I think that many of my
contacts have, as I rarely see them. I guess, though, I've done the
equivalent in the past of feeding twitter to facebook. I didn't leave
it there long, as I realised that I get bored with other people's
twitter to facebook updates, so I've disabled it. I still have a lot
of friends who do it - so maybe it doesn't bother them as much. Or
perhaps they don't think about it - who knows. (And do the app users
enjoy reading what their contacts apps have posted, do they not know
how to disable them, or don't they care?)

There's another person I follow who complains no end about people
using #tags for conferences they're at - yet others find them very
useful.

Looking at some of the "How To " Guides for Twitter, it strikes me
that many of the authors believe that *their* way of using Twitter is
the best; and thus others should use it in the same way. But, going
back to the example of the tweeter who hates #tags - and those of us
who like them. Who's "right"? Is anyone?

My personal view is that we should use it as we see fit; sure, there
is always a role for sharing of what we consider to be best practice
for us, but it's ultimately what suits me best that I'll do.

Someone also mentioned buying followers ... there was an article about
that on the BBC website yesterday:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8130456.stm

-- 
Emma Duke-Williams:
School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator, University of
Portsmouth, UK.
Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/emmadw
SL: Emmadw Rickenbacker