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Robert Scoble
Robert Scoble
Homework project: how many followers on social networks are "real?" My initial findings are astounding, participate here as we discover what's going on:
February 23 - Comment - Share
Visit http://twitter.com/TechCru... and now click on each follower. How many messages have they written? I just visited about 100 and only two had written more than a single message. - Robert Scoble
Now you know why I say followers don't matter. If I fake 100,000 accounts and follow myself with them do those accounts matter to anything? No. - Robert Scoble
But I didn't understand just how bad the spam account problem is. On friendfeed I only follow accounts that are putting content into the system. I am only putting people into my ultra special lists (ie, the ones I read first thing in the morning) if they participate. Those are the high value accounts that make being part of this fun. But how many of those accounts do each social network have? That's what matters, not whether a blank account was produced. - Robert Scoble
Who is a bigger fan of you then yourself. :) So if your not following yourself then why provide any content? :P </sarcasm> - CW™
They matter because other twitter users think that you are popular because you have been followed by 100,000 users. Thus, in result will entice new followers. - charles
this is in line with participation stats from other communities like Open Source or UGC - online a thin minority contribute (in the 5%/15% range) - but it doesn't mean they're fake - just shy or dumb - Marc Brandsma
Beau: I wish I had a tool to delete everyone who hasn't posted at least 10 Tweets from the list of people I'm following. - Robert Scoble
I have found that a lot of people who are on social networks like Facebook or Twitter are not really there to participate but to be the voyeur (to borrow a term). They are more interested in what others are doing but rather not share their selves. It is not an uncommon social trait to be curious to what others are doing but not want them knowing what you are doing. It's small town living on the internet as I like to say. - Christopher Mercer
Marc: I don't agree. After visiting a few hundred of these accounts now, they sure look fake and "spammy" to me. - Robert Scoble
Christopher: that's interesting, but is very weird. Why would you want to watch what people are saying if you don't want to participate? I wonder if anyone will cop to having such an account here? - Robert Scoble
What's your definition of 'real'? There's a difference between spam accounts (let's say created for SOE or to get you to click on a link to just 'blast' marketing) and passive accounts, where someone is happy listening. They don't *have* to participate, most are perfectly happy just watching. - Rachel Clarke
There are 3 types of followers - real people, PR accounts and special like you :-). On my personal twitter ( http://twitter.com/michalblaha ) I prefer real people. On my project's twitter ( http://twitter.com/ontheroadto ) I prefer mix of them. I got severel very usefull contacts for http://www.ontheroad.to from my twitter followers . Its reason why I never (rather) block any of my followers. - News from ontheroad.to
Rachel: you make a good point, but lots of these have weird names, look like spammers, and don't participate. What value are they? - Robert Scoble
I don't know if I really understand the problem here. Granted, if you have a lot of fake followers that makes you look bigger than you are. But otherwise, who cares? I personally follow (and follow back) people based on the quality of their posts, not on how many followers they have. - Matthias Catón
Special followers like you are real people with unbelievable number of accounts they follow - not for PR, not for spam, but to be informed. Strange think on it (for me) is how you can handle so much unstructured information together. You know some magic which I don't know ;-) - News from ontheroad.to
Interestingly, the few I've found so far that have posted real content have had photos on their bios/accounts. I think that's a good way to filter out spammers. "No photo, no friend." :-) - Robert Scoble
I think the major difference between me and TechCrunch would be the people who look for me and whom I add on facebook are people I actually know. I have some very close friends who are not active users of social networking sites but use them to keep up on their active user friends. As for twitter, yes a lot of accounts follow for the purpose getting follow backs. I subscribe to the the idea that just because you followed me does not mean I will follow you. - Christopher Mercer
There are a lot of people, at least in India, who are in strict readonly mode. A lot of them just follow interesting people and read their tweets and shares. Its almost like a substitute for Google Reader. So judging by just the tweet count would be unfair. If there were a last login time in the twitter api, it would make more sense. - Ritesh
Matthias: well, I have been getting more and more spam into my DM column, so there's the danger of that. Yeah, there really isn't too much harm other than if you are in this to just game your follower count that people will figure out that you really don't have an engaged audience there. That will catch up with you eventually. I know I'm more likely to follow someone who has a really great set of friends/followers. I'm sure I'm not the only one. - Robert Scoble
I think that you are most likely to follow a person who is in the field of your interest, much the same way you subscribe to a feed. I, for one, follow many of the social media geeks since the subject interests me, but I very rarely participate in discussions. I enjoy reading what others are saying and shared news and links. So I guess I am a social network voyeur (@Mercer) :) - "Jazzperous" Isaksson
Robert - agree with you about the spammers. I block them all. I also block those who aren't automated spammers but still doing the same behaviour. They have no value for you, or me. I'm wondering what value they have for themselves, if they are like spam email where they get enough interaction to make it worthwhile. - Rachel Clarke
I was followed last night by someone, who it took me 6 pages of back tweets to find 3 actual tweets that did not say 'thanks you for following me' targeted at followers, looks like a real person, but boy so little content, not worth following back. - Carl Grint
I think its the amount of posts is the give away. Even if people are just taking it in I do not like the idea of passive tweeters. You have to get in and get your hands dirty. - Sam Philp
Techcrunch has a lot of inactive followers recently because they're listed in the recommendation box for every new Twitter user. But I agree with other commenters, who follows you and how active they are is irrelevant. The real power of Twitter and all social media is in the conversation, not in the lurking. - Stuart Dallas
On twitter I always page back through recent tweets before following someone back. Generally speaking if I find at least one message or link that's interesting I follow them. I'm not hugely bothered if I'm not followed back. It's not always bidirectional, what you get out doesn't always correspond to what you put in and that's why I find it useful. - John Samuelson from BuddyFeed
I think reasons to why I don't interact more, is that 1) my English is limited 2) I feel I don't know enough about the subject, but still have a great interest in it 3) I am a quiet person... Would you guys block me? - "Jazzperous" Isaksson
"No Photo, No Friend" Sounds like a good qualifier. I can't help thinking though that there is a ton of people who try something like twitter just to see what it is, don't get it in the first 3 minutes and then give up. Shame. - Jay McCormack
I try to participate as much as possible but being just a happily married regular "Joe" with a nuclear family may not be very interesting to most. That said, I have received benefits in the form of personal and professional growth as a direct result of participation in social networks. - Mattb4rd
Sam, Stuart, John, Carl, bing, bing, bing. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Interesting how you can classify users based on who they are following and who is following them. The amount of interaction I'm getting here and on Twitter about this (despite it being 3 a.m. in the morning) tells me that people are finding this a real problem. - Robert Scoble
A bunch of ghost followers can make the difference, that's for sure. Stupid as it may seem, as a presentation card when you first check someone's tweets, it works. You say, hey this guy has 10000, 20000, 60000 followers so that must be for a certain reason spammers included. But still I wonder what the use is except for a bunch of extra work. It is clear that many will hold on to your tail just to feed on the hosting tweeter but they count too. I suppose that a proper balance is ok. - Carlos Lorenzo
Jeppe: I think it is a mixture of things. On facebook you'd never get friended because I use it for friends and family. On twitter you just would not get a follow back. Since everyone uses these applications differently it is really a contextual issue. Following me is much different than following Robert, Mike A, Doc Searls, etc. - Christopher Mercer
Mattb4rd makes an interesting point... problem is I don't think there's such a thing as a regular 'Joe'. Everyone has something to share, a passion, a hobby, a special knowledge of some sort. It's getting beyond the 'what i had for breakfast' posts that provide the real value. - Jay McCormack
Christoper: Yes, think you are right. - "Jazzperous" Isaksson
Carlos: well, now that the number of followers people have has no integrity I am looking under other rocks too and finding no integrity elsewhere. Some people really try to keep their accounts clean. Others, including me, let all sorts of muck in. I think I will clean that out. Why? Because now that I'm looking at other people's followers I see that having lame followers around isn't good at all. - Robert Scoble
Christopher: it's interesting, now that I stuck my foot in my mouth over the weekend on the Twitter suggested friends issue people who work for big brands have been talking to me about what they want on social networks. "Real" is a word I hear over and over again. Why? Because users who participate and push the brands are much more important than users who sit there and do nothing. They've already learned that, so why do we feel so compelled to gather up do nothing followers? I'm going to change that. - Robert Scoble
John: That's exactly the approach I use. Someone follows me? I will check out his tweets to see if there's at least a few that interest me - then I will follow back. The number of followers is of secondary concern to me. As for the number of tweets, I go for the opposite: I prefer less. - Matthias Catón
I don't follow anyone new back. Too many of them were flooding my timeline with no participation. If you want to follow me that's fine, but it's only with @ replies that you'll get me to pay attention to what you're doing. I might however drop by the blog. - Richard A.
I found a new algorithm: the quality of your follower count is totally dependent on how many accounts have non-default pictures. The problem is that if you actually wrote that algorithm and implemented it then the spammers would quickly figure out they better put a new photo on the account. - Robert Scoble
Robert: In my case I work according to a different algorithm. I unfollow anyone that hasn't replies a single time. I don't follow anyone new until they've exchange a few messages with me. If I want to listen to a monologue I simply go to their blog ;-) - Richard A.
Robert: This 'particular' influx of masses of spam accounts into Twitter is relatively new. Leo Laporte spoke about it recently. As Twitter gains more and more media coverage, it becomes a more attractive place for people to produce these spam accounts. I got an email through http://thetechnewsblog.com from one of my readers, to say she had been told that they controlled my a few users, who are planning some kind of mass attack on Twitter. Who knows? - Jim Connolly
Robert: I have been slowly coming to the same conclusion; it is not enough to be careful who you follow, you should also care about who follows you... But doesn't this mean Twitter should change the behavior of the Follow button to Ask Permission To Follow ? (or at least provide it as an option for those who want to filter their followers) - Antoine Bertier
Does it matter whether it's a picture (like of a human) or just non-default? - Jay McCormack
Twitter should forget about celebrity accounts and encourage dialogue. What makes any social network work is dialogue. Without conversation twitter would be gathering dust as a home server somewhere. - Richard A.
Robert, I think in your case the nothing followers are people who have decided to user twitter (in the example of twitter) to follow your activities. In my case they likely just want to spam me (hoping I follow back) and in the one case someone used @<username> to spam me, I blocked them. - Christopher Mercer
Jim: but look at the accounts that are following TechCrunch. Then compare to the accounts that are following me. Mine have pictures on them. Techcrunch's don't. Mine are participants who Tweet. TechCrunch's are not. It's very strange. - Robert Scoble
Christopher: I disagree. Some accounts are gathering a lot of these "fake" accounts than my account is, for instance. Why is that? - Robert Scoble
Robert: That's because Michael doesn't speak with his followers - just broadcasts TC posts. It's easy for spammers to 'follow' him without him noticing. You would notice it AND make some noise. - Jim Connolly
Jim: maybe, I'm not sure that's true. But it does seem to have something to do with the new Twitter suggested friends list. - Robert Scoble
A lot of posts are very helpful links to interesting things - which I appreciate. However it's seems really difficult to engage anyone in a real conversation or get an answer to a question. - Breck Stewart
Robert: If a spammer follows one of those 'suggested friends', they get MORE followers themselves. These accounts are super-active right now. By being seen on those follower lists, people follow the spammers too. It's only a small percentage, but if Veronica or Michael can get 60k new followers in 14 days, the numbers these spammers can get is higher, than if they followed me. On my list, very few people would 'see' them. - Jim Connolly
Finally some traction on this as I only brought it up on the 14th Feb ;) http://twitter.com/styleti... , as I commented on thetechnewsblog its not just about the fact they are fake and bolstering the numbers think what chaos or hram these 10's of 1000's could do to Twitter if they all started spamming or tweeting at once!? - roger byrne
You know, there is a website that lets you unfollow inactive users and users that never posted a tweet. Twitter Karma! http://dossy.org/twitter... - Gloson Teh
and if you look into it further the 'Norm' for these accounts is one update and all following 20-22 of Twitters suggested followers! - roger byrne
what Christopher Mercer said, on my personal id I only follow people who I think have something interesting to say or whose info I want to see, this also includes friends and family. On my projects id I look at every follower and as long as I don't think its a spam follower I follow them also, but I don't read the posts apart from the first page when I first sign in. There I'm providing info for others. I will reply to any questions of course. - Tina Clarke
Beau: no, thanks, I hadn't seen that yet. @ev is full of crap. These accounts are totally different than the average Twitter account. Look at my followers. Then go and look at the followers on any of the top 20 accounts. Totally different behavior (no icons, no posts). Personally I don't mind. Twitter has now corrupted itself and I really have lost all caring I used to have over that service. It's why I'm putting my friendfeed likes into Twitter now. I really have no incentive not to push everyone here. - Robert Scoble
I bet that by the end of March that Twitter goes through and deletes all sorts of accounts. Just watch. These accounts don't help the system out. They look lame because they are lame. - Robert Scoble
I'm real. I may be boring, but I'm real. ;) I block spammers and I don't automatically follow non-spammers back. I only follow people I am already friends with or new people I find interesting. A particular pet peeve of mine is being followed by self-gurus and social network marketing "experts". Ironically, after complaining about these "Tony Robbins types" on Twitter I was followed by the director of Robbins' films. ;) - Eric Williams
Eric: no doubt YOU are real. But here's one of the lame accounts: http://twitter.com/Serious... -- following only 20 people. No followers. No messages. Only standard icon. This was created by a computer, not by a human being. Now, go through any of the 20 people he's following and look at the follower accounts. They are all lame! I love it, create tons of fake accounts and make your numbers higher and higher. - Robert Scoble
"This was created by a computer, not by a human being." - As a categorical statement, I think this goes too far. It could easily be the equivalent of discussion forum lurking. - John Craft
John: sorry, I disagree. The pattern is out of wack. I'm sure there might be a few people who exhibit this pattern, but not thousands among thousands. Also, the pattern changed a few weeks ago. Explain that. - Robert Scoble
@john craft Bull and you know it ;) check through pages of followers in fact pick page 200 of any of the ppl and you can see how many accounts this really is that we are discussing here, you ever saw 100,000 lurkers before because this is what this amounts to! Now opposite to Robert I believe these people have no responsibility for this but also the fact there has been no action against it beggars belief why? This could seriously screw up their service! - roger byrne
And, John, let's say you are right, that these are real humans who created on their own the same kind of account. Follow just the same 20 people. Don't change your icon. Don't post a Tweet. Etc. Etc. Are they as valuable as, say, the people who are following me who actually post, actually have attractive icons, actually follow more than just the defaults? No way, no how. They aren't "real" to advertisers. Why not? Because they exhibit no behavior that will turn into sales. THAT is what advertisers want. - Robert Scoble
the pattern changed for all accounts at the same time chk twitter counter its 9th -11th of Feb for all these accounts... - roger byrne
"They aren't "real" to advertisers." That, I agree with. - John Craft
Roger: Twitter is now corrupted and we are just starting to understand the beginnings of what happens when you corrupt your community. Luckily we have a non-corrupted community here to contrast with Twitter. - Robert Scoble
Thank Robert I love Twitter and it HAS changed my life so I have no plans to leave or to accuse people of wrong doing but if it was my baby I sure would be taking care of it much more! - roger byrne
roger: me too, but they don't listen to their real users. I guess I should have just been a user like TechCrunch. In fact, I'm starting to understand just how right Mike Arrington is when he pointed out to me that I should blog more on a service that I can control. - Robert Scoble
This is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. If I'm twittering a robot then I'm wasting my time! - Captain Jack
Captain: nah, I've learned over and over again that blogging/twittering into the wind actually can be useful. I've Twittered things just to get them off my chest, for instance. I've also blogged things just to get them into Google so I can pull them out later. On Twitter I could get readers just by having fun with http://search.twitter.com -- no followers needed. - Robert Scoble
Captain: it's a serious issue because this, and the very lamely developed suggested friends feature, demonstrate that there's something Rotten in the State of Denmark. But we already knew that because of how many times we have seen the fail whale over past two years. - Robert Scoble
I find myself checking to see if someone has a blog in their profile also. So for me it's photo+blog=friend. - Jay McCormack
As the government is so keen to do when there is wrong doing, they call for an investigation. I think its time to call for an investigation and demand answers. I for one don't want to use a system that inflates its number for personal gain. I have discovered that having control is better when social networking. Twitter reminds me of those networking lunches where everyone is expected to give 2 referrals. - Russ Jackson
And all of these "followers" follow exactly 20 people... I'm enlightened. I was wondering what was happening to my modest Twitter account when it suddenly started attracting all kinds of unlikely followers recently - but it's probably the same thing, machines, and not a sudden burst in popularity. Oh, well. Thanks for reminding me of my FriendFeed account via Twitter. - Terje Fjelde
Jay: that certainly works for me. Russ: I don't worry too much about it. If I can figure this out with 15 minutes of poking around so can everyone else. I am sure a bunch of these accounts will disappear soon. Twitter doesn't want to be embarrassed by this because it won't help them monetize anyway. Unless they are charging per thousand views and then advertisers will figure out the accounts aren't real very quickly anyway. - Robert Scoble
Playing devil's advocate: Isn't it also possible that many of these "lame" accounts belong to people who just recently joined? They haven't spruced up their profiles, haven't had the courage to tweet, only follow recommended twits, and are generally feeling their way around the service before getting fruitfully involved. Of those, I bet a large number decide Twitter isn't for them and leave their accounts dormant. - Eric Williams
Eric: it's possible, but very unlikely (it's also possible I could win the lottery four times in a row). After all, this was NOT the behavior of lurkers BEFORE Feb. 6. Why would it change on that date? You really think there are lurkers out there who'll behave exactly the same in groups of thousands? I don't. Not possible, because of how people get pulled into Twitter. You get pulled in by your friends. So, there will be some variability there. - Robert Scoble
Robert I agree if you can figure it out in 15 minutes than everyone else can too. I was saying it tongue and cheek. It says something about those who have to inflate there numbers though. Perhaps they are lacking in something or in an area. LOL - Russ Jackson
Sounds like you're really letting this nonsense get to you. Relax. The free market of ideas that is the net will sort it out before long. If Twitter sucks, it won't survive. Then again, I'd have expected MySpace to die a horrible death long ago. Hmm...maybe Twitter won't die, but it'll become an internet ghetto for the terminally lame (like AOL). ;) - Eric Williams
my app works on its own as well as as the frontend for the twitter team themselves. Instead of having to report @spam and then go through all your friends to find the bastard to block.... it would auto-parse out 'potential and known' spammers into a group.. one click and your account is clean, meanwhile any new ones are sent off to a convenient way for the twitter team to once-over the account to see if its legit or if its spam. - Brent Terrazas
Eric: online communities have been getting to me since 1985. You're right, just because something sucks doesn't guarantee its death. In fact, it can easily get much more popular, even with these flaws. That said, now I have something new to think about. It's not the end of the world. Just the end of the importance of followers. :-) - Robert Scoble
In the last month there have actually been close to 7 full blown twitter mass account creation and/or twitter mass account spammer apps released. Some cost over $200. Regardless, everyone i Affiliate marketing is going ga-ga over this... this is literally the beginning of a new era of twitter spam.. - Brent Terrazas
I never gave a rat's ass how many people followed me anyway. As long as I have enough followers to maintain interesting conversations, I'm happy. :) - Eric Williams
Eric: you don't need any followers to have interesting conversations. Friendfeed proves that. :-) - Robert Scoble
This is my first real FriendFeed convo. I'm still not entirely comfortable here. Keeping track of conversations feels like too much work. Either I have to visit the web page and manually reload or use something like Twhirl and drown in a flood of data. Am I just really dense? Is there an easier way to keep up without being overwhelmed that I just don't know? Is the learning curve less steep than I think? - Eric Williams
Are followers following someone else's follows just because they deem that person to be an influential tweeter? - Mark Fletcher
Eric: I just use the web page and refresh. - Robert Scoble
Mark: I don't think so. Three weeks ago I was on Twitter's top 10 list, so should be getting nailed if that's the case. I'm not getting nailed that way. - Robert Scoble
Robert: Excuse my ignorance, but surely you know someone with connections at Twitter? Ask them. There's something seriously weird going on. - Jim Connolly
Jim: I'll ask Biz when I wake up. - Robert Scoble
Still trying to get my head round friend feed. as far a Twitter goes, I follow a few "celebrities" and interesting people but most of my actual "tweets" are intended for my family and real life friends. I guess most people who don't know me personally won't be interested that I've just walked the dogs or I'm going to bed, but friends and family will be as they will know if it is ok to phone or visit me. My facebook is really only intended for my family. - Andy
Robert, you and I think a lot alike so there's really nothing more I can add. It. would be nice to have some sort of threshhold setting that a person has to have nnn posts before you can follow them. But then, that could be gamed also. - Keith Barrett
they're building them like you build blog farms.... at first while amassing quantity, you don't spam outsiders, u link up and spit out aggregated comments, then at somme point boom.. all 5k go off and spam.... onto the next 5k...etc..friending a top 10 would=ban - Brent Terrazas
I don't twitter a lot but that is because who would find my changing nappies and going to pick up the kids from school interesting? Okay maybe one day of that but everyday the same tweets? I'm one of the ones that find other lives more interesting than my own at the moment until things start to get interesting in my own!!!! and no I'm not embarrassed to admit that. - May
A large chunk are just people that are hoarding contacts. - Gerard van Schip
Beau: the main goal of a private account seems to be to make the tweets private (they are do not appear in everyone, or in search for instance). The interesting side effect is that you get to filter your followers, but there is no reason to limit this feature to private accounts. The issue is not to prevent valueless accounts to get my updates (since they are meant to be public) it is rather to prevent them from polluting the list of followers that appear on my profile. - Antoine Bertier
Almost every time I "tweet" I get several notices that so and so is now following me. when I go through to their accounts, twitter have usually deleted them or they have nonsense tweets about this or that product that i "need" to enhance my life - Andy
What is real? I have to remind you, Robert, that we met online. And now we are real. I met @stevegillmor, @karoli, @mobilejones, and so many more people online and they are as real to me as @chelseahardaway, my daughter, who is now also my online friend. It' a blur. I know tons of my Twitter and FB friends personally. - Francine Hardaway from twhirl
Where's the white paper on this? You should be writing it. - Francine Hardaway from twhirl
I seem to have added about 50-60 followers in the last day or on Twitter, which is unusual for me. Honestly, I wonder why as I am not a heavyweight twitterer...nor do I think I post anything particularly profound or even useful. The only things I changed recently were putting a bio, blog link and headshot in, so I assume that this is what many people look for...I think the human factor is sometimes lost with the proliferation of social networking. - John Samuelson
I have a number of accounts in places where I participate by observation. Seriously. We all pick and choose what we do with limited time and endless choices of what to do with that time. I've only been "twitter-active" for the last week or so, "twitter-dormant" for a year or two. The point is that I don't recommend writing off the silent majority as spammers or of no use. They contribute by being the audience for much of what goes on, via Twitter and other channels. - Colin Wheeler
Are you going to blog your numbers? That would be cool if you did. - Dan Morrill AKA Techwag
Also, an analogy I like using - swimming in the sea; some folk are OK to jump in where it's deep, others want to slowly inch their way into the waves, others will stand still and wait until the tide reaches their chest ... but they are all getting wet! And probably all will end up swimming to one degree or another. Well, it sort of explains my point ;-) - Colin Wheeler
It's amazing how many fake accounts I see trying to connect with me. I'm still a small Twitter user and getting everyday a couple of spams, is way too much. - Zack Brandit
Robert, are you trying to fight with Turing test? :) - A.T.
Speaking only for myself: I follow a lot of people because in my position (someone who teaches new media journalism) it is a potentially valuable way of keeping up with thought leaders (like you, Robert!) ... and is increasingly replacing my use of RSS feeds. While I would also like to accumulate my own cadre of followers, at this point in time I still prefer to spend my time on longer, more thoughtful items (i.e., blog posts) than tweets. That may change in the future. - Rich Gordon
i'm real.... just real quiet :) - todd
I am a human :) - Joe Dawson
I like to follow Twitter conversations from my iPhone but often don't like to type out a response if I'm away from a keyboard. And it just feels odd responding to a tweet that's been up for a while. So not sure if that makes me one of the odd ones that watches more than comments, but it works for me :) - craterdweller
Have you seen Brooks Bayne's post on this subject: http://brooksbayne.com/post... - seems to confirm what you're saying Robert. I've been thinking of zeroing my twitter followers and asking the real people to re-follow. Bet I'd lose 50% or more. - Leo Laporte
Maybe I should start working again on my little web app, that lists your followers and the date of their most recent tweet. I guess it's also possible to get the number of updates along with this time/date... - Holger Eilhard
Last summer I took a look at the full feed from Identi.ca, and found that around 25% of all registered users had posted only once. Only half had posted more than 5 times, and IIRC, the 80/20 "rule" applied and ~80% of the traffic came from the top 20% of users. I'd be surprised if Twitter's stats were much different (chart: http://kshep.posterous.com/more-id...) - Ken Sheppardson
I think there's a lot of dormant accounts. Join, use the service for a bit, then fade away. Takes too much work to maintain a lot of networking sites. - Barry Biddlecomb from twhirl
I think there are only 5 real people out there. :) - mikepk
I think real <> volume. Isn't the value of this technology many frequent intersections on many different threads...Is there a map that shows the frequency of those people's interactions elsewhere? We (I) don't all have time to trawl through the feeds alll the time. It's an attention economy and we (I) split it between about 7 sources on average every day..? - dromologue
mikepk: I'm convinced there are ~101,000 real people, as I've seen that many in one place at one time in person (Michigan Stadium.. Go Blue). The rest is all CGI. Of course there's no reason you should believe me, as I'm just part of the plot to deceive you. - Ken Sheppardson
I'm real . Blip beep zip <CR> <LF> - Ken Pruett
I'm real, at least I'm pretty sure I'm real. - Aram Zucker-Scharff from twhirl
Far better of an argument is how much traffic is truly real. - Patricia
I think active users who are authentic = real. I have been getting lots of phonies following me lately. Get real! - Jeremy Campbell from twhirl
wow, such a long and winded thread discussing phenomena of followers and following. it is very simple, really. follow whom you think is interesting to you and with whom there might be possible exchange of information and life experience. I do find Robert and some of his friends quite intersting. I do however not follow the A-lister bloggers or entrepreneurs whose feeds are prevalently twitter insider info. Fake followers? That happens, it is inevitable with FF- and Twitter-like architecture. Live with it. - Hayk H.
I find twitter is just a entertainment tool. It's better served for popular people to make fans feel like they have a live channel to their idol. Marina of hotforword.com uses twitter for such purpose. She doesn't even follow me on twr and I'm her assistant on her website. Micro blogging just waste too much time when one could spend it on adding more content to your master blog. - Captain Jack
I'm real. But I must admit that I do a lot more following on twitter (and here) than posting. And I only follow informed people. Don't care for the silly stuff. - lolise
I just got a bunch of new Twitter followers with obviously computer generated names like e3fG4q etc. - KyleHase from twhirl
This thread proves one thing, Robert: your friendfeed followers certainly are "real." :) The number of comments on this thread are a bit overwhelming. - Steve Lynch from twhirl
It's not about "how many" - it's who, in what context, and by what percentage. Check out http://twitter-friends.com for a glimpse of the social network analytics that addresses these questions. - Lawrence Liu
Greetings Robert, some of us use the social channel as our news source. We do not input a lot however we are consumers of the feed. Does that make us not real? - James Tallman
James: you're real, I wouldn't worry. Here's the deal, though. "Real" people always exhibit random behavior. Always. Whenever you see 10,000 people who sign in, add the same people, don't do any posts, don't customize their icon, don't add any random friends, that can be demonstrated to be fake. Why? Cause everyone hears about Twitter from someone else and there's variability in the friends they add. At least there was before February 6. What happened after that date? Twitter's community was corrupted. - Robert Scoble
I'd say based on recent twitter experience about 25%. I'm a relative nobody, and my followers quadrupled. My guess is they are all REAL nobodies. - jcunwired
The challenge is that many tools use the number of followers to "rank" you and make you an influencer. Is it right? No, but we have to play with the rules we have. - Julio F ~ @SocialJulio
For us newbies on twitter and friendfeed, it's pretty challenging navigating all the comments. A lot of interesting stuff out there but it moves so fast you almost have to be plugged in 24/7 to catch the conversation that most interests you. That's tough when we all have lives outside the Internet ;-) I'm wondering if there are unwritten "rules" I missed somewhere...How long can we be silent (attending to other business) and still be considered "real" followers? - Donna Horne
Julio: bing. Which is why the integrity of Twitter is now gone. Advertisers might be fooled, but not for long. This world passes info around so fast it'll make your head spin so anyone who buys advertising (or hands out access or something else like review units) based on Twitters follower numbers is lame and deserves to be ripped off. - Robert Scoble
I believe twitters integrity is being challenged by its own success and spamming, hopefully this opens up the market for friendsfeed and 3rd party filtering applications. - Carl Plant
Carl: Twitter's integrity is being challenged by its own stupid decisions and lame algorithms. But they probably will just arrogantly write off this as the ranting of someone who was punished by them. Which is true. - Robert Scoble
Robert - bingo! - Susan Beebe
I'll only follow if people have made the effort to upload a photo, sent at least a few messages to show me they're going to give me something to follow and most of all - dont proclaim they are the best at anything / use their twitter account as a billboard.. - Matt Randles
also, a tool to go through existing contacts and see those who have less than 10 updates or say no updates in the last 90 days ... with intention of removing would be cool, unfortunatly the twitter api limits mean running it would have to be low process and could take a long time.. - Matt Randles