@jeff is Jeff Clavier, well known Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist. @timoreilly is Tim OReilly who runs O'Reilly Publishing. @davewiner is Dave Winer is a famous developer/innovator. @ev is Evan Williams, Twitter CEO. @notsecretscoble is my account where I've hand picked about 800 to follow. - Robert Scoble

1. Jeff is most like me. Very geeky, but he has far fewer people he's following than the others. - Robert Scoble

2. Tim O'Reilly follows lots of government people and brands, which matches what he recently told me, that he's trying to learn more about Washington DC. - Robert Scoble

Looks like this might become a compelling conversation. - David Damore

3. I also compared @ev (Ev Williams, Twitter's CEO). His used to match much more closely Dave Winer's or Tim O'Reilly's accounts, but now has many more movie stars and celebrities. - Robert Scoble

4. There are a lot of commonalities between all these accounts. - Robert Scoble

5. On my account if I couldn't tell you a story about the person, I didn't add them. Most of the people on my following account I've met face-to-face. - Robert Scoble

6. Most of the others follow a lot more brands than I do, both news brands like the New York Times, as well as other brands. I like following people more than brands. - Robert Scoble

What else would you like to know? - Robert Scoble

7. I am more convinced than every that the inbound people pay attention to DOES define who they are. - Robert Scoble

What is one insight you have pulled from those you follow? - David Damore

David: that following people you've met face-to-face is more enjoyable than following just 100,000 that you haven't met. - Robert Scoble

I agree with number 7. I also like to keep my twitter full of people I mostly know, have met or want to meet. - Luke Kilpatrick

David: and that keeping the inbound (IE, people you follow) down to people who REALLY add value to you, makes the signal MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH higher. - Robert Scoble

Your follows will be mostly US-based people, and wherever you visit, then? - Aaman (Clone of FF)

Washington DC? He picked a complicated enough place to learn about. - Dean Clark

I have two screens, one with the 100,000 and one with my 700 hand picked followings and, damn, the two aren't even close to in the same league. - Robert Scoble

be. careful. robert. all that testosterone is a DANGEROUS thing! - jeneane sessum

those 99k are a lot of extra noise... A threshold level of relevancy is hard to get from those you don't know. - David Damore

Aaman: not true. I've been all over the world and have people all over the world in my list. - Robert Scoble

Robert I agree with the face-to-face part. Thats what makes tweetups so great. You get to meet the ones you follow and vice versa. - BRҰANSAҰS

David: yeah, but I don't think the noise is due to not having met them. It's due to something else. - Robert Scoble

David: even on my list there are some who provide GREAT value and some who just are, well, noisy. - Robert Scoble

Robert Scoble: What is that app you run that tracks your travels? Remember seeing it all the time months back. - David Damore

I like to follow people with whom I have something in common (programmers, tech people, geeks) that I can feel connected to. But I also follow a few related to my company's (GoldMail) business, and a few unrelated just because they seem interesting. Wjhat does that say about me? - RobinDotNet from iPhone

When ever I follow someone back, I usually ask is that person someone I would be interested in meeting. If the answer is no, then I don't follow. I think this idea will start to be the way that twitter evolves rather than a race to see who can get more followers. Its about engagement and value rather than a noisy number. - Luke Kilpatrick

David: I think there's an 80/20 rule going here. 20% provide 80% of the value, and the fact that there's a lot of commonality shows that most of us recognize that value pretty quickly. So there is something to popularity (real popularity, not the fake kind as granted by the Twitter Suggested User List). - Robert Scoble

David: Dopplr? If I keep it up, that is. TripIt is my favorite travel app. - Robert Scoble

If you knew them... a tweet such as... "baby is sick tonight" reaches the threshold.... so when you talk with the contact.... you can ask about the baby... The relationship takes what one person calls noise and makes it relevant information. - David Damore

RobinDotNet: I think that is a good strategy for twitter. I usually follow that same paradigm. - BRҰANSAҰS

Yep. beleive it was Doplr. Pareto, know it well. So critical to know and understand. - David Damore

David: good point, you'll put up with more noise from people who are closer to you because that noise becomes more useful. - Robert Scoble

I don't care how many follow me. I won't follow someone just because they follow me. Lots of them are parasitic, just want something from me -- buy something or click through. - RobinDotNet from iPhone

Twitter and technology for that matter are so free flowing in how they can be used. There is no on right way to use. People need to remain flexible and adaptable to changing conditions. - David Damore

Robin: I agree with you there. On the other hand, it is interesting to see if people you like are following you. Even more importantly, do they engage with you and really read you? - Robert Scoble

David: all of the people I studied tonight had quite different lists than they had a year ago. The most different from a year ago? @ev's. - Robert Scoble

Robert: How do you gauge how those who follow you perceive you? Its a difficult task, is it not? - BRҰANSAҰS

Bryan: get them drunk and ask. :-) - Robert Scoble

Would you say those folks are all successful? My guess is that they all are. Success like innovation is build upon leveraging changing conditions. - David Damore

Oh, people who follow more than 2,000? Useless. - Robert Scoble

LoL Nice one. - BRҰANSAҰS

David: but the way people use technology evolves as the technology matures. There are so many different ways to use a communication tool. Twitter, and things like it are a bit of a new kind of animal versus what was there before. I personally rank twitter or friendfeed, up there with the website, the bbs and Instant Messaging as a communication media that can change in may ways. - Luke Kilpatrick

David: yes. And they all are among my favorite people to read. - Robert Scoble

Good thing I only follow 1,200 or so peeps, - David Damore

David: yeah, about 2,000 is the cut off for intimacy. I've been all over the world and met with many thousands of people and I still struggle to come up with more than that. I'm not adding everyone I've met just to try to keep noise down. - Robert Scoble

Robert, you're right, I think by "I don't care" I mean I don't follow back without checking people out, or at least read their previous tweets. I like it when people I know join Twitter, but few of my friends have. Not very geeky. One of the great things about Twitter is that I have been able to connect to so many others who are geeks, who understand why my pulse quickens when I walk into a Fry's store. :-) - RobinDotNet from iPhone

1,200? I check my list at least once a month to get rid of people and haven't really ever gone over 100 for long. - Dean Clark

I wouldn't keep up with 300 to follow, gotta work sometimes ;) - Franck Curier

Luke: whats the difference between twitter and basically "public email"? Its a communication tool that everyone can see. Thats how I perceive it, except for the DMs. - BRҰANSAҰS

I follow more than I am followed by about a 2-1 ratio. That's because I am using Twitter to listen and engage as much, if not more, than I use Twitter to broadcast. But still, I'm close to my limit (around 1k). And I'm starting to purge those who I thought might be interesting but are just there for marketing. I'm there to learn and meet, not be sold. - AllisonWagda

Right now I'm looking at @Furrier's list. He's following 2,360, which is too many, but love that he follows PGAGolf. These things tell you a lot about a person, as much as Facebook's profile does! - Robert Scoble

I think that 250-350 reasonable twitterers works well. More if you can cut out the blabber mouths. - Sam Pullara

@Scoble: Would also apply the 80/20 to 2000. If the top 20% post all the :"great" content one could follow many more people. The problem with following more than say 800 is that you lose out on the low velocity users. For those folks it might be a better idea to set up an RSS feed for them. - David Damore

Being one of the founders, @ev should be considered differently, whenever you examine his followers list, after all most people would probably prefer getting CEO's feed, hoping to get quality info regarding Twitter. As for the rest, many people would rather prefer following quality content and engaging users, while followers "hunters" will go with everyone, because they think their voice will resonate best with bots. - Nir Ben Yona

Sam: that number will vary based on how good a networker they are. My brothers? Probably only need that many. I need more than 1,000. - Robert Scoble

Sam, how do you define blabbermouth? - RobinDotNet from iPhone

Allison: I'm a bit of a lurker as well. I learn more from twitter than I contribute but I'm trying to change that. - BRҰANSAҰS

Bryan: 1. The 140 limit makes you be clearer in your thoughts. 2. Its a broader reach than an email. 3. The almost countless ways to consume a twitter feed on many devices. 4. Twitter is a networking tool that can get you introduced to someone in a way that email can not. I have met more and built more relationships via twitter than any other tech. - Luke Kilpatrick

Nir: knowing @ev I assume that the movie stars are there just for business reasons, not for personal reasons. I bet that if @ev wasn't running Twitter he'd be complaining about all the celebrities on Twitter. - Robert Scoble

Bryan - I didn't mean I'm quiet on Twitter - I'm *way* too social to keep my mouth shut. ;) - AllisonWagda

In a way, who you follow is a sort of gesture. I follow some people that I want to interview, or that I think will signal to the rest of you the kinds of people I want to be introduced to at parties. :-) - Robert Scoble

Luke: Those are all correct, its the next evolutionary step in communication. Just like email was over its predecessor, snail mail. - BRҰANSAҰS

Wow, John Furrier follows all the high tech brands. He's signaling to the world that he wants to do business with them. :-) - Robert Scoble

Robert: That's interesting. Clearly, I don't have any idea about it, but I think we've all seen that implication, in Twitter's leaked documents (re: Diddy). - Nir Ben Yona

Robert, et al. - this is a great conversation! I am really thinking I need to totally clean out my follows. Signal to Noise ratio has really gotten bad, even with Tweetdeck and other tools - Susan Beebe from BuddyFeed

One thing I notice about @ev's tweets is they don't seem to be targeted for any segment of followers. Where my tweets usually fall into either Adobe Usergroups / ColdFusion / Fireworks, Social media or Surfing. Do you find that you tweet with a targeted segment of your followers in mind? - Luke Kilpatrick

Luke: with Tim O'Reilly? Absolutely. With the others there's a focus, but not as focused as Tim. - Robert Scoble

Robert: I do enjoy following Tim O'Reilly as almost all of his posts have a good and relevant link to what I am interested in. He is definitely in my want to meet someday category. - Luke Kilpatrick

Sometimes I follow someone for one reason, then find them interesting for another reason too. Luke-- would like to come watch you surf. Find it fascinating. Watched it a lot last time I was in Hawaii. - RobinDotNet from iPhone

Robin : I go out everyday almost, let me know when ever you can make the trip to Half Moon Bay. Still you never get the full feel of surfing until you do it. - Luke Kilpatrick

Luke, I'll do that! I do come over that way every now and then. Just had knee surgery, swimming forbidden for 4 months. I'd be happy to hang out on the beach in the wind and sun. Or just the wind, since a reputable source said there's no traffic in HMB unless it's sunny. - RobinDotNet from iPhone

This topic brings back to mind one feature I would like TweetDeck to provide, the ability to share groups as OPML. In my other account I receive more tweets than I can read, so my columns are organized by interest priority, I just realized that this won't help too much your analysis since Ev and Dave usually tweet from web and Jeff and Tim from Seesmic. - Alberto Saavedra

As I thought @Furrier is following a lot of dead accounts, so he isn't keeping his Following list very clean. I've found this to be true of almost every one with more than 2,000 accounts. - Robert Scoble

@Scoble: What did you use to check for "dead accounts"? - David Damore

David: manually going through each of them and seeing the last entry is "follow me over here" or seeing that they haven't updated in a year. - Robert Scoble

I am intrigued by how small the group who has influence is... It seems to be less than 50 people!! - Wayne Mansfield

Wayne: nah, it's actually a few hundred. :-) - Robert Scoble

Thought there was an app for that. - David Damore

Hi Robert. I'd be interested to know *why* your list is using Twitter - their primary purpose. Is it to sell things, because they think they should be there, to keep abreast of what others are doing, to find opportunities...all of these? None? - WoH: Minding her Botts

WorldofHiglet: most of us started in the early days, when it was something cool to do to keep in touch with other people in the valley and SF. Now it's changed to be more business and/or building a specific kind of audience. - Robert Scoble

I think everyone uses twitter in a slightly different way, many start using it for one reason and end up with another. I started using it to keep up with Adobe Usergroup People scattered across the planet but, I find I use it more for sharing Surfing info with a collection about about 100 surfers around the world. - Luke Kilpatrick

That's what I thought, and the use seems to have changed organically. But it seems that Twitter is less relevant now to some of these early adopters. Is this because they are getting what they need (whatever that might be) from something else or is it more to do with them having changed the way they do things? - WoH: Minding her Botts

Robert a few hundred is still not many... for the power of the medium!! - Wayne Mansfield

WorldofHiglet: a lot of the early adopters are on Facebook or FriendFeed, so their usage has spread out. But there's still a lot on Twitter. I'm watching the flow and it's going pretty good. - Robert Scoble

I agree Twitter has a lot of legs to it yet - I was thinking more that some early adopters are at the end of the user life cycle for Twitter (I was reading this earlier http://ui-patterns.com/blog... and it seemed relevant) - WoH: Minding her Botts

I think friendfeed has captured up many of the early adopters as you can have great conversations on it like this one. It kinda reminds me of the old days of IRC, but with a more focused topic and engaged group. Also much more open with peoples real identities rather than anonymous user names. I like how more people are willing to user their real identity online now. - Luke Kilpatrick

I'm a big @davewiner fan! - wiredgnome from iPod

Luke, I think Shane made a good point regarding the basic difference between FF comments and IRC back on another thread with, "live commenting on a blog or FF doesn't necessarily demand all attention like IRC or IM would tend to make you feel you have to stay participating. Remember, some people still have fun with the conversation and add value even though they don't realize it's live" http://friendfeed.com/scoblei... - Micah

@Luke: I still love IRC, primarily because it's much smaller groups, much less noise, and you can get to know people much better. I think IRC will always be my first love when it comes to real-time online communication with a group. I always felt like Twitter was broken compared to IRC, because it was like people were there but not there and it's not the same crowd for everyone there, so you can't include person A in the conversation with person B unless A & B are also following each other. Then when it comes to persons C,D,E,& F, it gets even more complicated. How does a group communicate in real-time when they aren't in the same place (or same page) at the same time, in some way...together? Even on friendfeed, it's much harder to get to know individual people and have have a private conversation, mainly because you know each and every DM you send has the potential to be much more annoying than a PM on IRC, because a PM doesn't have the potential to stuff their email with messages from you like friendfeed's DM's can. Every DM you send on either friendfeed, twitter, or facebook could be viewed as an unwanted spam attack, and this stays on my mind and does influence whether I send a private message or not because I don't know if it will end up in their inbox, and if we have a convo, if they are going to have just 1 email (like in gmail) or many to go clean up later. And I hate to think of myself as a potential nuisance in that way. - April

I just find that IRC can be random and reasonably exclusive. I have pretty much stopped using IRC about 8 years ago when most of the people I regularly communicated moved over to instant messaging. Friendfeed is bringing back the public face of IRC, but with the longer term archive of the conversation that is lost on IRC. Every tech has its strengths and weaknesses. Just like I tell most of the fan boys I meet, I use the best tool I can find for the job at hand. - Luke Kilpatrick

Luke: I totally agree with you. I used to be a heavy IRC user. I will +NEVER+ go back. - Robert Scoble

Robert, One of the things that is interesting about what you put out with this discussion is how radically different approaches and methodology can still present specific results based on search and keyword approaches. In this case, each user demonstrates to the rest of us how to exactly get what you want out of twitter, and for that matter friendfeed and facebook too. - Alan W Silberberg

I really wish that FriendFeed was threaded so we could really have this conversation as it is interesting and I'd like to engage with it... however, this endless list of comments is terrible. Robert: I can see how it is possible to follow 1000 people if that is what you do for a living, like you do. RobinDotNet: someone who says more than 10 things a day with a low signal to noise ratio but has some hidden gems. I use FriendFeed to find the gems by following them here and waiting for comments. - Sam Pullara

On my @thomasknoll account I follow over 1k people that I have met, or who are interested in a few things I pay close attention to (social anthropology, community building, value networks). I don't know everyone on that account personally, but I do remove noise. I have another private account where I only follow people who I would happily give a key to my home. - Thomas Knoll

I follow some people just to get a conflicting view from what I believe. Just because you follow does not mean you are an actual follower. - Ken

I've been struggling with my "follow" policy for a while. As time goes on and I meet more and more people face to face, I'm moving slowly in that direction. I might just completely adopt it after SXSW '10. - Trent Hamm

Twitter is extremely limited in that it isn't possible to set up groups, so in fact one has to set up different accounts. I have one account that is quite small, updates protected, that follows only a handful of people I know personally. I can see every update in this account easily (oops, have to use the new official term "tweet"). I have another account that doesn't tweet and only follows news sources and agencies (kind of like an old-fashioned RSS reader, but quite effective). My main, massive account is like a giant Rolodex, and all of my contacts are mutual (64,000+) I think the next generation of tools like Twitter (Friend Feed is more advanced than Twitter for instance) will correct many of the deficiencies in who to follow, how to follow, etc. I predict Google Wave will (yes, pun intended) make waves. Twitter should have sold to Google, they will probably regret not having done so. Their technology totally sucks and seems to be getting worse instead of better. Twitter's user base is rapidly becoming one massive clogged artery filled with ridiculous spammers and affiliate marketers, I now have to block more than 50% of those who try to follow my Rolodex account. Sheesh. - Robert Morrison