Stowe Boyd over at /Message writes a nice post questioning some Twitter metrics and analysis being thrown around.
I have suggested for a longtime that to ‘get’ Twitter you need to follow 100 people at least, for several weeks. This cursory recitation of stats suggests that there are thousands of users out there happily communing with a handful of friends. I don’t buy it. I bet most of those accounts with small use, small links, and small time online represent a fringe of uninvolved people who aren’t getting much value from the service, if they login in at all. The sweet spot is far north of the center of some bell curve, I believe.
However, I don’t agree that Twitter users need over 100 following/followers for it to be compelling. Just as other communication tools are used in different ways, so I think it is with Twitter. I know that many people are following between 20-40 people and find the service useful. The question is not “how many”, but “who”. Who are the people you are following? Are they your best friends, or some folks you worked with 2 years ago. Different answers to this latter question result in different user scenarios.
Originally posted as a comment by PaulAdams on /Message using Disqus.
on Dec 24th, 2008 at 11:32 am
I totally agree. I have friends who follow maybe 20 or 30 people, and still find it great.
What’s really interesting with Twitter, is that everyone constantly argues about it, it’s uses, it’s benefits, etc. But in reality they’re all talking about a different product. Everyones twitter stream is totally different. I think someone is “noisy” if they fill up one page of my stream, yet on some of my friends streams I am by far the noisiest person there. It’s all about Who, certainly not how many.
That sentiment is not unique to twitter, though.
on Jan 3rd, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Agree. The behaviours of people interacting with ambient updating, backchannels of communication, etc. are far from stable.