Louie Mantia:
If you’re that Twitter user that follows 500+ users, how valuable are the tweets from those people? Are you really paying attention? Are you really reading them? Why are you following that many people?
I ask the same question about people who have 500 friends on Facebook. Maybe I look at friendships differently, but I don’t even think I know 500 people. Surely I’ve met that many people, but by no means would I ever call them friends. Likewise, with Twitter, the people I follow are people that I intend to listen to and converse with.
Which brings me to another point: When I follow somebody, it’s not because I saw they were following me, it’s because they sent me an @reply somewhere down the line and I liked what they said, read over their past tweets, and I want to read more. That, to me, sounds like a more real interaction with people.
Quality content deserves to be read—that’s why we need to cut through the cruft of useless material.