As mentioned earlier today, Twitter seems to have capped your ability to follow at 2,000 people, which just so happens to be exactly where I am. The goal, in theory, is to stop marketing-oriented spammers, but it could be another way to reduce stress on the system. So what should I do now, delete "less favored" people, or wait for Twitter to figure this out? - Louis Gray from email

Maybe it's the legacy talking, but I'm really not bothered by this. :P - l0ckergn0me

I can see why they do it, but it does suck for the people who do it legitimately and are not using stupid mass follow scripts. - David Risley

I'm not super-concerned either, but it does answer why all of a sudden, I started getting these errors last week. It could be part of their "Making Progress On Spam" initiative via the blog, but it hasn't been spelled out all that clearly. - Louis Gray

let blame this one on Scobles... :)- - Peter Dawson

Louis, I think cap is more of the architecture the system. Making it into a more robust platform. Now watermarks have been set, it becomes easier to build consistency of experience and application behavior. <Edit > wait for Twitter to figure it out.. Marketing spammers are targeting the 'stupid' one that have the auto follow !! - Peter Dawson

gotta like it, if I'm the one you are trying to follow! - Ben Hedrington

I don't think there should be limits like this, but I guess everything can't be infinite - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I honestly am indifferent about it; Twitter is going to hell and i tried my best to convert it; oh well, Hell has cookies - Gordon Swaby

I"m only following 49... with 106 followers.. - Ian May

so what do you think, Louis, is benhedrington worth going to the mat for? - Nathan Rein

I'm sure I can find someone to unfollow in exchange for Ben. - Louis Gray

Twitter needs to build in groups functionality a la tweetdeck for following 2K+ to even be practical. - Nicholas Molnar

Louis: You need to convince the new people to head over here :) - Justin Korn

I'm just curious what the rationale is for following that many people. - Paul Rodriguez

Well, maybe that's why Louis always seems to know what's going on before anybody else. - Rahsheen ™, Coach Rah

I've noticed that most of the time I get followed by somebody with a big number, it tends to be marketing play. It triggers the email to you and then you go look and click on their bio link which takes you to the pitch. Very irritating. I always block em. - Mark Schulz

@Paul Rodriguez, I was wondering that too. I wouldn't have even guessed there are 2000 interesting people in the world </cynicism>, but what fascinate me is that i'm following like 83 people and only about 14 of them tweet regularly. I can assume most of those 2000 do not tweet regularly. Add in the fact that I'm a WAHM to two toddlers, and do other stuff, there'd be a lot of stuff I'd miss. - Captain Bubbles

New profit center? Sorry, but now you'll have to join Twitter Pro .... - Charlie Anzman

Info restrictions suck:( - Igor Poltavskiy

Very interesting. System limits is going to be a topic that we all work through in this early phase of the Social Web. It seems to me that it's reasonable to cap the number one follows to 1,000 or 2,000. On the flipside, one would clearly like to enable a very high number of followers. With respect to bi-directional connections, the real number should max at 1,000 to 2,000... - John McCrea

This is awesome! Incidentally, Scoble (@Scobleizer) is still following over 30K. - Vincent van Wylick

So where is the point following 30k people? You might as well hit the main timeline. The only thing that is bad about this limit is that it was not there from the beginning. - Alexander Kohlhofer

@kevinrose: 56K+. Losing 54K+? - Igor Poltavskiy

so what's going to happen to those who follow over 2000? - Wayne Sutton

you follow two. thousand. people.??? never mind twitter; there may be a law against that. - jeneane sessum

I like the new limit. I cannot see how anyone would be able to legitimately follow (and pay attention to) more than 2,000 people. Frankly, even that limit seems higher than it needs to be. If it helps keep Twitter a little more stable, go for it. - Dennis Metzcher

Couple thoughts: the limit impacts the ability to use the service as a direct message router -- for some people. It also reinforces the need for dectralized microblogging -- so if you want exceed the limits you can do so on your own infrastructure. Lastly, nothing prevents you from following everyone or a subset of people through RSS/feeds. - Chris Messina

Are we sure that Twitter has set a 2,000 limit are or we cranking up the rumor mill? I've seen image before with respect to my own account - an account which just reached 1,000 followers today. According the Twitter rep who contacted me, I got - ahem - put in "Twitter Prison" for "Aggressive Following" My ratio of Followers to Following was kinda out of whack - at that time I had only ~800 people following me while I was following ~2,800 - They suspended my ability to follow more people. I removed 2K. - Vincent Wright

I don't understand the motivation for following 2K people if you're not a spammer... someone explain? - Jason Carreira

Jason: For a entrepreneur/VC/angel networker, it would be very easy to hit 2,000 contacts (assuming you used Twitter like a rolodex). From one networking meeting, I might pick up 0-100+ business cards (more at conferences), and during a heavy season I could be doing 7-10 meetings/week. As a angel, I might want to follow 5,000-10,000+ projects/people. Anyone might have a really good project 2-10+ years down the pipe... I've got cartons/boxes of 3-ring binders of business cards in plastic sheets. - Mitchell Tsai

@Mitchell @Charlie - Rumors aside, do you think the cap is a gesture towards monetization? Going after the power networkers? Seems you would have good cause to pay for a Twitter Pro, or would it just not be worth it? - joneilortiz

I use Twitter as both a professional development tool (following people who say useful and interesting things abt health / edtech / social media / libraries ...), a personal tool (friends and folk who are amusing), and a reference tool (following a lot of news streams and information resources). You can hit 2000 fast. A friend says that people are imagining new ways in which Twitter could be used, but Twitter seems bound and determined to force them back into some small box of how it "ought" to be. - Patricia F. Anderson

I would happily follow more than 2000 people, heck I am almost there. And I don't need to see every message. With Tweetdeck it's manageable. I see some Friendfeed users here have thousands to tens of thousands of subscriptions, should we also say it's good to have a cap here? No, please no. I understand that perhaps it has to do with monetization or stressing the system less, these are alas viable reasons. - Jacob