Comments on: Twitter Terminal Velocity

By: Finucane

Finucane — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:53:30 +0000

Right now I’m following just under 100 people and can still keep up with everything in my stream, but I have contemplated what it will be like as that number grows.

When moving to the TTV I think your stream begins to work in many ways like your brain does. You have your full stream which is like your subconscious; you can’t just jump in and experience it all simultaneously without going mad, but you can apply pattern recognition to realize currents in the stream that you may want to follow more closely. Following particular users would be like when you concentrate on a particular item, easing in to take in the whole stream at once could be like a zen meditative state, etc., etc., etc.

I think it all really boils down to a matrix between how anal retentive you are (the degree to which you feel you need to see everything posted by all that you follow,) and where your ego lies (the degree to which you feel you need to follow all that follow you since if they find YOU interesting then they must in turn be interesting.)

Sorry for getting bloggy here on a comment, but it’s such an interesting topic.

By: ravi karandeekar

ravi karandeekar — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:16:02 +0000

I not only enjoy the terminal velocity of the twitter but reading about it to. It’s fun to read updates of the unknown person as well as following well known expert. Yes, responding is fine but i find talking little difficult. However..

By: Corvida

Corvida — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 05:36:19 +0000

After reading this post I think I was afraid that Twitter had no Terminal velocity because of all the people you can add. I was so afraid of it growing out of control and you’ve just put it all into perspective that it won’t, with a little bit of structure I can add as many people as I’d like! Thank you!

By: coach deb

coach deb — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 03:57:59 +0000

I love the concept

All I care about is that I’m glad you’re following ME!

LOL

By: Geoff Livingston

Geoff Livingston — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 22:43:32 +0000

I’m in the same boat, my man. Good post. And I agree, unless you are a spammer, on principle, I am following you back.

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:03:50 +0000

Rudy: White noise.

By: Rudy

Rudy — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:01:05 +0000

I hope you have your computer’s speakers turned down, otherwise those “DING” sounds with Twhirl will get to you after a while.

By: Annie Boccio

Annie Boccio — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:40:06 +0000

I handle Twitter almost exactly the same way you do. I follow/am followed by around 300 people and there’s no way I could read it all. But when I look through my list I know at least something about each of them. I respond to replies and DMs, and try to spend time each day focusing on Twitter and just hanging out. I don’t worry about what I’ve missed.

By: John Johansen

John Johansen — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:16:54 +0000

I like the way you’ve framed this. I’ve been happily growing my list in a slow, organic fashion. And, haven’t hit a tipping point where hordes of people start following me.
Part of the reason that I’m happy is because I can engage in Twitter as a less time-intensive process more frequently throughout my day.

There have been many posts about Twitter but one that sticks with me is @darmano idea of the conversation ecosystem. I use Twitter for the conversations that I can have more than as a content discovery tool.
In fact, one of my criteria when determining if I want to follow someone is how much of their Twitter stream is just them talking and how much are @ replies. If they seem too 1-sided, I’ll probably pass.

Because of that, I’m comfortable with following whoever is interesting to me. Even if they don’t follow me back, I know I can engage them with an @ reply. I feel that potential has yet to be realized with Twitter.

Because I have a smaller network, I do spend more time clicking through other people’s @ replies to see what conversations are happening elsewhere. I’ve met some interesting people this way and gotten into some good discussions.
By letting my network curate (in effect) I don’t have nearly as much to sift through but still get involved on topics that interest me.

And since I haven’t reached terminal velocity, most of the time I can still associate the person with the tweet. Which is important to me.

By: Aaron Brazell

Aaron Brazell — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 16:57:46 +0000

It does also mean that youâ€™re catching up on 480 Tweets a minute during one 30 minute section per day. Or 8 a second!.

Even 2 30 minute blocks is 4 Tweets every second for a full 30 minutes each time!

If I’m reading them all. Which again, I’m not. That’s too much data for anyone. I think it’s a mental thing. Your mind gets trained to deal with a certain amount of input and adjusts accordingly. Inline with my post, someone said that the difference between 100 followers and 1000 are negligible.