Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 07:37PM 
Welp. Evenyone has their limits and I’ve reached mine.
My wonderfully nerdy partner in crime Iain visited NY recently and over many glasses of wine and pasta we had a debate about the reason Twitter exists. A debate about Twitter’s purity of communication. A debate about how, why and even when people should use Twitter. Iain thinks Twitter is a conversation tool solely. One where you should listen AND be listened to. He’s right. And until today, I wasn’t really “listening”.
Until this very moment, I was following more than 1500 “friends” as Twitter. It was a lot of work getting up there and for a moment I was proud. Not anymore. I was caught up in a Twitter Frenzy I’m not sure I still believe in. Twitter has become a spammy medium and I’m falling out of love..sorta.
No I’m not leaving Twitter. It’s an amazing tool. It helps me connect with my team, I learned a lot from many of the people I followed. Many of you I will follow back. It’s just going to take me some time. (Want to give me a boost?) Shoot me an email.
Top three reasons why I declared follower bankruptcy:
I’m getting inundated with autoresponders. (Robots that send thank you direct messages when I followed you. My thoughts on them: 1. They are impersonal (mostly). 2. Many people fill them with spammy advertisements, using it as automated marketing tool to “buy their product now!” etc. As such, my direct messages timeline has become a total nightmare and not usable anymore. I had to do something and I decided to remove all my followers in order to thwart the robot attack.
The Twitter API is slow enough already. With so many follows, the best (free) tools our there (including Tweetie, etc) do not work properly. I want to use these tools to keep learning (and pass that learning on you YOU.
I’ve been insanely curious recently just how many actual “friends” I have on Twitter anyway. Meaning - just how many of you are only following me because I’m following you. And worse yet, might be using a tool like TweetLater to automatically unfollow me the second I unfollow you. I guess we’ll see. :)
So that’s it. These things IMHO were F-ing with my ability to enjoy and get value out of Twitter. Today marks my battle back to Twitter fun. :)
Welp, I wait for this handy dandy script that chuck wrote to finish unfollowing everyone, and then I start adding back people that will make my Twitter expereince what I need it to be - interesting, informative and engaging. Are you interesting, informative or engaging? Hit me up, yo.
Rock on.
social media tweetlater twitter unfolllow everyone unfollow | posted in: WTF personal predictions responses
Reader Comments (13)
I’ve been introduced to some incredible people on Twitter. I’ve even personally met many – some from far away states. Most I would have never have come in contact with if not for Twitter. That is what Twitter is all about for me – expanding my mind, horizons and personal network. Unfortunately, lately many don’t get that you have to give something to get something. That is what a relationship is about. I know I am somewhat isolated as a guinea pig (and don’t think for a moment that is not by design) but I still get some of that spammy, high school, popularity contest crap in my tweet stream. I’ve started dropping them like hot potatoes. Another byproduct I’ve seen is, some of those people get mean when you unfollow them. I can hardly wait for this phase to end and only hope it will.
Thank you for the post!
/ t
Someone make me an app that makes it impossible for me to check up on my friends untill I see them in person. No more twitting every up and down, no more facebook stalking.
Block me from finding out about my friends till I see them. That way they have a ton of new stories to tell.
Speaking of which, Tom I hope your coming to the Advertising Week Opening Gala. If your not, I'll sob till Matt puts out on the list.
Cheers.
I haven't been using twitter that long, but so far it has been an awesome webtool that has helped me create a "personalized news feed" that allows me to receive information from people I want sowing into my knowledge hungry mind.
Iain is right about twitter being a conversation tool, but defining conversation can be tricky. I've always heard that the best conversationalist are the people who listen more than they speak, and only speak when they have something worthy to say.
Most of the people I follow on twitter don't follow me, and I don't blame them. It would be pointless for most of them to do so. However, I am choosy about who I follow, and I am quick to delete the posers who just want to spam me.
Thanks for the post bro, I am always learning from you. Keep rocking the tech!
I suppose I won't have a good enough answer for you (or me for that matter) but I sure will try.
I originally felt as though I could handle the volume. And for a while I was able to. (Before the spam, etc set in.) I tried to be sure only to follow people that I found interesting (IE, they were already talking about subject matter that I was interested in learning more on or could relate to etc.) I did my best to reply to every single DM and @ I received (because in social that's "what you're supposed to do") but it started eating away at my life, my time with my kids...even my clients.
I'm not a Twitter professional - and never claimed to be. And I felt I had to come to a decision: Let this thing consume me and embrace it (at 100% like I try to do everything) or recognize my limits and reframe.
I chose the latter.
I agree I might have been able to be more discriminatory. Its true. But in all honesty - I tried. This thing is a giant steam roller and I dodged before it flattened me.
I will also say this...
I literally watched people I was originally following because they were interesting and honest turn their profiles into "spam accounts". No longer replying to people, no longer taking part in a global conversation, but rather trying to market to me and others every chance they got. I don't even alow my clients to behave that way - let alone my Twitter "friends".
So that's the long and the sort of it. I truly appreciate your feedback, and would welcome more, even on this note.
/ t
As soon as I unfollowed 500 or so users, Twitter suddenly became useful again.
So now I just follow main design blogs, very key figures in the industry, magazines, and articles who simply use Twitter to point to and highlight their own (decent) content or that of other's - which is what you do Tom, and is how I think Twitter should be used; like a pithy, real-time RSS feed.
I would like to make my twitter account more meaningful too. Probaly need unfollow, 2oo-300 people too.
How do I do it without taking too much time & without accidentally unfollowing people who matters to me.?
Thanks
two weeks ago i posted a bookmarklet for Dossy's "twitter karma" site that allowed you to unfollow all users through his interface...
http://naterkane.com/blog/a-bulk-unfollow-bookmarklet-for-twitter-karma/
a few days later the "twitter karma" site stopped working consistently (sorry Dossy! i hope it wasn't my fault)