
Twitter Needs a Spam Filter? No, We Need a Marketer Filter - theforay
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_needs_a_spam_filter_no_we_need_a_marketer_filter.php
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brandnewlow
I feel no pity for people who don't want to see #moonfruit tweets. If it's
that big a deal, unfollow your greedy friends who are willing to spam you in
order for a shot at a laptop.

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akkartik
Yep. Twitter's best use case seems to be awareness of what good friends are
doing (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=139421>). If people stay true to
that you should never have more than 7 subscribers who post a lot.

If you want to subscribe to more, _none_ of them can post a lot. Otherwise the
infrequent posters will get drowned out and you'll be likely to miss their
updates. (<http://akkartik.name/blog/2009-06-06-18-18-34-soc>).

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jamesbritt
I follow a ~350 people. Most don't seem to toot much. But I don't expect catch
everyone's postings; that's not the point for me. It's more like being in a
really crowded room, where i occasionally wander around and overheard bits of
conversation. I can step in if I like, or like it flow past. Sometimes I have
a twitter client running where I can change stuff via peripheral vision.
Usually I just poke in to see what the recent 100 posts happen to be.

It's an ambient medium.

I'm surprised, then when people speak of using twitter to get news out on
something (such as an upcoming local event), since there's a very good chance
people will not see it (unless it gets repeated and re-repeated).

I _have_ stopped following people who tend to not offer much useful info (I
really don't care where you are eating breakfast, nor want to be reminded that
you enjoy being a shill for someone's business). Basically, I prefer that any
random slice of messages will have some actual information content in the mix.

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akkartik
You don't care about catching everything, fair enough. But do you care equally
about everyone you follow? I contend that you don't. If you sample randomly
you bias for those who post often rather than those you care more about.

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jamesbritt
"But do you care equally about everyone you follow? "

Of course not. That's not how use Twitter

"If you sample randomly you bias for those who post often rather than those
you care more about."

If a random sample routinely has someone posting items of little to no value
to me, I follow. So it works out.

The people I really care about I connect with in other ways: phone, E-mail,
blogs, conferences and local meetings, and so on.

Twitter is but one of many ways I get my daily data bath. That I miss this or
that is not a big deal. Besides, the important stuff tends to get repeated so
it usually finds me anyways.

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eli
If you took out the people trying to market something (or themselves) there
would be hardly anyone left

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TrevorJ
I very much agree.

I wonder how much traction there will be in the next 18-24 months for a social
network service that advertises a "No marketing" policy for it's users. I
think people would value a service that refused to advertise to them or
otherwise sell their data.

