July 31st, 2007
Questions About Facebook And Twitter
Here are some questions about Facebook and Twitter arising from my ongoing web communication experiment.
Feel free to answer any or all — although most of you reading this likely won’t answer any, because you’re in passive media consumption mode, as are most people. (Nothing wrong with that — being active sure takes up a lot of time.)
Does it make sense to pick a few active Twitterers (Twits?) who you like following and follow everyone else they are following so that you can keep up with the whole conversation, i.e. become part of the whole community gathered around that person? I was thinking of trying this with Connie Reece. (Hi, Connie, if you’re readying this.) With a blog, you can just subscribe to RSS and then read comments, but with Twitter you’re only partially wired in unless you’re part of an entire group. So often on Twitter you overhear half a conversation, which is odd.
When does it make sense to stop following people on Twitter whose tweets haven’t interested you — especially if they never address any comments at your tweets. Is this rude? Is there a nice way to break up? Dear Twit letter? How long should you hold on before cutting ties?
When does a group make more sense on Facebook vs. on the open web on a platform like Ning? The value proposition of Facebook is privacy, i.e. sharing with ONLY a defined group of people, not the whole world. But discussion boards on Facebook groups can be viewed by anyone on Facebook. So what’s the value of having them behind the Facebook wall — why not on the open web where anyone can discover them, especially through search? I suppose one value of having them on Facebook is that you can meet and connect with other group members — couldn’t you do that on the open web if Facebook were more open?
UPDATE: Seth Goldstein says that “closed is the new open,” so maybe it’s all better on Facebook.
Same question about “breaking up” with “friends” on Facebook — is there an etiquette? The purpose would be to prune the friends tree to create a network with a more coherent definition — is that worth it? Does it require having things to share that you would want to exclude people who don’t fit your definition from seeing?
Is anyone following me on Twitter without a Twitter account, i.e. just going to twitter.com/scottkarp? If so, any value? For those of you following me on Twitter, since I’m following all of you, feel free to answer the “any value” question on Twitter or here.
That’s all for now.
Topics: Facebook | Social Networking | Twitter
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? If so, any value? For those of you following me on Twitter, since I’m following all of you, feel free to answer the “any value” question on Twitter or here. That’s all for now. [IMG ] [IMG] (via tmonkey’s starred items in Google Reader)
Hi, Scott. (Of course, I’m reading. I’m a faithful subscriber
I also need to eliminate some people I’m following who have fallen by the wayside. Unfortunately, Twitter does not make it that easy to do since you have to scroll through pages of people rather than having any kind of index w/ check boxes. But the recent upgrades have helped with adds and notifications.
“Breaking up” does not seem to be as important on Twitter as it might be on other socnets. You simply stop following someone; the rejected person does not get notification - although if they only had a few followers to begin with, they might notice your absence. And they can still follow you, unless you block them.
The number one request among Twitter users is for Groups, so we could avoid listening to only one side of a conversation. I imagine that feature will be coming. In the meantime, I have done as you suggested — check out “friends of friends” when I’m interested in the topics being discussed. That’s how I built my community there.
These days I seldom add anyone new to Twitter on my own initiative, and I do check out those who have started following me. I reciprocate with those who offer enough information on their profile or whose tweets seem to be something I would want to read. I block those who appear to be spammy. I prefer to engage in conversation rather than gather followers in a population contest.
That’s all for now. **bye bye**
1) i think it is pretty easy to follow/leave a twitter. a twitter feed is like a radio: there is nothing wrong about switching on or off a radio station.
2) i do not think facebook value proposition is privacy but rather the size of the people database: i can find in facebook more friends or people i know that anywhere else (when you are 40 facebook beats myspace!).
I don’t know how entrenched you are on Twitter, but you can follow conversations perfectly Pownce.
Not quite true. You can have a secret group and invite only select group of people. The admin decides about the nature of the group.
I don’t get why anyone would want to follow hundreds let alone thousands of peoples tweet streams. At some point, even if you happen to know each and every one of them (doubtful) there would reach a point where the stream is not longer a personal community and thus loses all meaning. With Facebook it is a little less so since there is much more information and ways to interact, but even there I don’t subscribe to the Scoble view of profiles as big Rolodex.
Constraints are helpful. You recently observed the value of the 140-character limit in Twitter. Keeping your stream constrained adds value. If someone isn’t looking for community, just Google.