

Top Twitter User Unfollows 106,000 People - AjJi
http://mashable.com/2009/08/06/twitter-purge/

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DrJokepu
"Much like MySpace, it seems, users are learning that having 100,000 “friends”
you’ve never met is much less valuable than connecting with a select number of
people you know well."

That's hardly a new discovery; I remember when I first tried out this
"Internet" thing in '95 I subscribed to all mailgroups I've encountered just
because I could and it felt cool to receive mail from people in places like
South Africa.

Obviously I quickly learned that it wasn't a very good idea but the point is
that the concept of reducing spam by not giving out your contact details to
anyone (or in the case of social networks, not following / accepting as a
friend anyone) is not new at all.

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tremendo
Curiously that closing line is one with which I completely disagree. Someone
once described the difference between Facebook and Twitter as "Facebook is for
people you used to know, Twitter for people you want to know".

Speaking for myself, I get a lot of value from Twitter by following people
that are smarter than me, and mostly, I don't really "know" them, and they
mostly don't know or follow me back. I don't care for follow-backs, I care to
get their wit, their pointers, their knowledge, their humor.

For "people you know well" there's meatspace, or Facebook when geography makes
the former impractical.

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tjogin
> "When I unfollowed everyone all my spam just stopped. Dead. No more spam.
> Not since Monday. Twitter is actually quite enjoyable. Not a single DM spam.
> Not a single piece of spam has come through the home page."

I don't think it's fair to call it "spam" when you have _chosen to_ follow the
accounts who are "spamming" you (it's certainly not _unsolicited_ tweeting).
It's not spam, he's just been sloppy in choosing which accounts to follow.

~~~
cracki
nope, he set his account so that whenever someone follows _him_ , _he_ follows
_them_ too.

that's how he got so much spam. bots started following him.

~~~
tjogin
Whether he chose to follow them _automatically_ or not, he's _subscribing_ to
their updates. That's does not fit any definition of "unsolicited" I know of.

~~~
salvadors
I don't think it's their updates that are being classed as spam as much as the
direct messages that they send. It's certainly arguable that if you follow
someone you're subscribing to those too, but I think it's less clear-cut.

~~~
tjogin
True, I wouldn't say he "subscribes" do their DMs. But, he has decidedly
_opted-in_ to them sending him DMs.

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shadytrees
Actual article here: <http://scobleizer.com/2009/08/05/you-are-so-unfollowed/>

~~~
jrockway
Interesting article. I only follow 100 or so people, and there is no way I
could catch up on tweets that happen while I'm sleeping or on a plane. Too
boring.

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MicahWedemeyer
Follow Friday should be followed by Scalpel Saturday. Cut away all the people
whose updates you really don't care about and never read. Make it a 1-1 thing:
Don't follow anyone new without purging someone. It really makes Twitter much
more enjoyable and useful.

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chanux
Keep it real. You won't get tons of followers but you won't hate it either.

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jacquesm
To limit the number of followers you can have but not to have a limit at the
number of sources you can follow seems to me to be the wrong way around!

