@Scobleizer did Twitter lop off a bunch of your followers or is the new limit for new users? - Christian Anderson

another step backward. i guess open & federated microblogging will be the alternative... such as http://identi.ca (which runs http://laconi.ca/trac/) - lohang

This proofs, that Twitter is not able to do a stable service. They know only few will pay. FAIL for the masses ! - Ryo

Dude, you're like one of the few that gets to have more than 2000. I want to say I'm jealous, but I'm already over twitter. - Pete D

Investors, save your money, before it's gone! - Ryo

really? thought there's at less three ppl with over 50,000 followers, one of them being @barackobama - Pajama Domain via twhirl

@Ev says its not true. There's no limit to Twitter followers one can have - Christian Anderson

I think Ev is going to say that limits do exist but there is not a hard limit at 2,000 - i.e. the limits are different for everyone based on various factors that they won't make public. That's their party line (for now) but there is a lot of evidence piling up that new users can't get past following 2,000. - Mike Doeff

I wish everyone I follow on twitter will move to FF as well, will make everything so much easier. - Amit Morson

And I don't follow new people on twitter, all my new follows are on FF only. - Amit Morson

Yeah it is a stupid move. Can't they be a bit more inventive in preventing spammers - Michael McGimpsey via twhirl

The limit is not on the followers you can have but on the number of people you can follow. Big difference I'd say. - Alexander Kohlhofer

A lot of bad info making the rounds on this. They're not limiting followers. They're limiting *follows*... the number of people you can follow. That's a much more reasonable thing to do. - Mark Jaquith via twhirl

Yeah, I've gotten a ton of "followers" who follow 3k+ and are followed by around 100... I'm not adverse to limiting these types of people so that they will only follow me if they're actually interested in what I have to say. - Frankie Warren

Aah, this is a nice exercise in seeing how quickly mis-information spreads. First it was that Twitter cuts the ones you follow, then the ones that follow you, and the whole time @EV denied the whole "meme." http://twitter.com/ev... Long live social media! - Vincent van Wylick

The follow limit SUCKS. There's a group of us who are petitioning Twitter to get rid of the follow limit. Yes, and to clarify, they are limiting the number of people you can follow, not the number who follow you—it has to do with the ratio. If you get above 2000 people you're following, and it's even a few hundred more than are following you, they suddenly (without warning) put you on the follow limit. It's very frustrating and does not work well for those of us who have corporate clients on Twitter. - Cathryn Hrudicka

it sucks but for only a minority of the twitter users or so... - Ouriel Ohayon

This is a new follow limit, and seems somewhat arbitrarily enforced (see my previous comment). This is not smart for Twitter, either, as they are creating a climate of frustration, distrust and general unhappiness among loyal users who have professional reasons for needing to be able to add people, and we are in a position to recommend Twitter to our corporate clients—Twitter's business development says they want more corporate clients. How can we recommend Twitter to clients if THEY will be limited, too? - Cathryn Hrudicka

this doesnt concern me much for the moment :) i wonder if all followers actually read and digest info or it is merely for stats. - Hayk H.

Look guys, stop the groupthink-inspired panic. There is no limit. @Scobleiser, whom you're all responding to, is following & followed by 30K people. - Vincent van Wylick

And the downfall of Twitter continues. The ride was good while it lasted. I guess this means that FF will replace it. - Bob Blunk

conversation OVER. no limits http://gigaom.com/2008... - Ouriel Ohayon

what's up with all the limitation everywhere? it doesn't matches to the web evolution! - Orli Yakuel

Aren't there a bunch of apps that rely on follows to function? Doesn't this severely limit their adoption? - Hal via twhirl

This really limits community building. They should do a percentage rather than hardline the ceiling at 2K - Mike Sansone

Do you guys even read the comments that other people are writing in this thread? - Vincent van Wylick

99.999999% of everyone who will ever use twitter will have less than 50 followers. Let's be honest here - even if this limited existed (and there is good reason to think it does not) it woudln;t limit twitter for regular users one bit. As for FF... good tool but totally different value than Twitter. "Move to FF" is a odd statement to me... I cant do what I do on twitter on FF. - Soulhuntre

I work for a large magazine printer. This isn't very encouraging but I agree. - DivemasterDoug via twhirl

The only thing I know of that FriendFeed doesn't do that Twitter can is SMS. Which I couldn't possibly care less about. Yet I can think of many things FF does better than Twitter without needing a bunch of 3rd party websites. - Paul Reynolds

The 99% argument is flawed. It's the same with homeland security and surveillance. 99% should have nothing to hide. - Benedikt Koehler

You convinced me! - Shannon

@ouriel: This is even worse! No more than following 2000? Twitter is dead. Long live Friendfeed! - Ryo

Umm.... civil rights issues are INTENDED to favor the minority. Software services are developed for the majority of the users they serve. You do see how flawed that analogy of yours is, right? - Soulhuntre

When FF is easily used via SMS, and supports the thrid party services and is easy to teach to the only semi-nerd folks who use twitter but woudl NOT sit down and use FF (SMS is good for that) then call me. - Soulhuntre

Follower limit st'oo'pid.Despite early mover status,catchy name,deer in headlight fawning press,another reason to look at alts. - JimmyJet

I thought Facebook was wrong only allowing 5,000 friends, now Twitter only allows 2,000 followers? What is this Web 2.0 world coming to? - Jeremy Campbell via twhirl

@Biz on Twitter said you could have as many followers as you want. - PC Easy

Robert, does that mean they will be limiting your followers? - Nicholas James

No way, this is for new people, if they start a cull they will lose everyone! - Joe Dawson

I see a pro twitter feature coming soon - Wayne Sutton

Flickr tried this a while back and there was enormous backlash. They tried limiting your contacts to 5,000. They later rescinded the limit and changed it to you could have no more than 5,000 *non-reciprocal* contacts. Since most people don't add spammers back, this easily deals with the spammers while letting those with larger social networks still manage their larger pool of contacts. A smarter way to deal with the problem. - Thomas Hawk

Twitter is limiting the number of people you can follow depending on a ratio of how many people you follow to how many follow you. Personally I have no issues with this flexible limit as it prevents idiots who run bots and follow 30K worth of people and only have 1,000 following them. This will keep the idiots at bay - BCK

That will lead to lose followers, too. Now one have to decide who is important enough. Twitter sucks. - Ryo

yes - I have not been able to reciprocate any followers for a while and I am at 2000......so I wonder if my following limits will ever be lifted? very frustrating......anyone know if they will change this? There are people I would like to follow too to see their updates.... - Big Paw Designs