friends

A handful of questions about Twitter

when is too much too much?

That's the beauty of Twitter. You choose your own level of involvement.

if I don't respond to follow them does that mean that they know I'm not interested in them? why are they following me?

People new to Twitter, people who are unfamiliar with the follow/friend paradigm, and people who think it's a popularity contest will be bugged if you don't follow back. But that's because those three groups don't understand the power of a one-sided friendship.

On Facebook, you have to be friends (bi-directional) with someone to interact with them. Both of you have to agree on the status of your relationship.

But Twitter isn't about who is listening to you, or who is a bi-directional friend. Twitter is about who you interact with. For example, I am not following about a third of the people I interact with (reply to, talk about, etc). A good chunk of them aren't following me either. Because on Twitter, everything is open, and you don't have to have a defined relationship with someone to interact.

If someone responds to you, it'll show up under "@ replies" and you can carry on a conversation. But just because you're talking with them doesn't mean you have to listen to everything they say.

if they are following me are they listening or are they just waiting for me to follow them?

A little of both. Some people actually care, and some just want you to follow in return. Some are robots, some are spammers, and some are real people, who are really interested in what you have to say.

But regardless of the type of user, you should feel no obligation to follow back. I use a couple of tools to make this process easier.

Twimailer sends me really great "follow" notifications, so I can usually decide right in the email whether I want to follow back or ignore.

TweetSum calculates your recent followers' DBI ... It's a bit like a Google PageRank for Twitter users. It's based on their likelihood to follow you, to interact with you, and not send spammy tweets. It has a simple interface for sorting through the masses of followers and deciding who is worth following back.

at what point will i have to separate my friends from commerce, brands, I like, don't like, don't know.

I still haven't. I unfollow brands and companies that annoy me, but I don't worry too much about mixing them in with the stream. If you really need the separation, check out Nambu (Mac only) or TweetDeck (really awful interaction). They both allow you to group the people you follow, so you can interact with them as discrete streams. I tried that approach for a while, but it didn't suit me, so I'm back to one big river of messages.

how many is the right number of people to listen to, follow.

That depends.

I follow anyone who interests me at the time. If you make me laugh, or you start a conversation with me, or I interact with you in some other space--Facebook, IRL, mailing lists, etc--I might start following you. But to me, following is a fluid concept... If I tire of you, I might unfollow. If you tweet too much, I might unfollow you. If you set up automatic tweeting of all your Last.fm activity, there's a good chance I'll unfollow you.

But following isn't the only way I interact with people on Twitter. I track quite a few things that I'm interested in, and converse with people who talk about them. I listen to--and usually engage--everyone who talks to or about me, regardless of our respective follow status.

at what point does it get too hard to do?

When you think about it too much :)

This was originally a response to a post on a Meetup group I attend. It's a bit rough, but I feel like there's some value in it, so here ya go :)

Some of you might remember that I tried to start a grassroots movement a year or so ago. After a brief moment of success, my campaign backfired spectacularly. Within a week or so I became the target of exactly the effect I was trying to cause to cause for my friend Jacob.

I found something interesting in my server logs tonight. It turns out that my long-forgotten blog post is now the top Microsoft Live Search result for starting a grassroots movement. Who would have thought?

You choose your words so tentatively when you tell me you're dating someone new. But you don't even use the word "boyfriend".

"I'm… I'm kinda seeing someone."

You're too timid about it. Apologetic, even? As if I'd be upset. Or jealous. Or mad.

As if I had the right…

Remember how it was I who left you?

I'm excited for you, I promise. I want you to be happy. I want you to find someone who brings you happiness. I lost my chance, but that doesn't mean I'd begrudge you yours.

How can we fully enjoy today if we worry about all the tomorrows we missed out on?

Please. Don't apologize for spending less time with me. Don't apologize because our relationship has changed. I only expected that.

What kind of friend would I be if I came between you and the rest of your life?

This has been on my mind for quite a while. It's an aggregate response to several relationships of varying levels of involvement, and various degrees of regret. It's about every girl I'm no longer dating, and every girl I never got the nerve to ask out. It's about every friend who ultimately found someone better for them than me.

a couple of days ago my coworker jacob was looking through his server logs and noticed that several people found his site by searching for "jacob is so stupid". when we found out about it, he was near the bottom of the second page on google...

we (a.k.a. myself and other coworkers, not jacob) decided that we could do a bit of grassroots seo work for his site, and help his page rankings in the process. so if you have a minute, google "jacob is so stupid" (no quotes), and click on his blog. (his domain name is jacob.peargrove.com, the page is called "Jacob's Blog" or "Jacob?s Blog » 2007 » January").

as of the time of this post, his blog was showing up around the top of page two.

the other day i got a package in the mail and it had CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES in it! how cool is that?

i've got this friend in l.a. named sarah. and when she found out about my run of bad luck at the end of the summer, she decided i needed some cookies.

that's about the coolest thing anyone's done for me recently. thanks sarah, you rock.

it's interesting how even though people change, they stay exactly the same...

last night i was in my kitchen. i introduced myself to the girl standing next to me... but before she could tell me her name i recognized her... she lived in the same apartment complex as i did. way back in 2000. used to come over a lot. i think she had a thing for my roommate.

that's right, thinks i, she was a swing dancer. but i don't think we danced together much.

i've been avoiding posting blogs for the last couple of weeks... "if you don't have anything good to say, say nothing at all" and all that junk.

but tonight i have something good to say.

i've noticed that when a everything goes wrong, you find out just how many people care. it appears that a lot of people care about me, for some reason.

i wish i had the time--and ambition--to write about all of these people. but i don't. so this post is mostly about traci.

traci's a great friend. she's always good for a hug. she's always down with going dancing. even when we're driving to seattle to do it.

and she's always willing to help. she just loaned me her "ghettofabulous old dell" laptop, for crying out loud.

granted, it's got a few issues. but a laptop with issues is infinitely better than a laptop that's been jacked.

thanks, traci. thanks for all your help. thanks for the support. thanks for everything.

that's is all.

ever feel like you met someone a little too late?

i think i did.

she's getting married in a month or so. not that it really matters, i don't think we would have been friends like that.

i'm just sorry i didn't meet her before.

my single serving friend of the day is jason.

ran into him today between classes.

we go way back, jason and i... seven years back.

but i rarely see him. each encounter is another single serving experience.

today we discussed human development, developmental theorists... erikson, chickering, perry.

and then we parted ways again, not to see each other for another 6 months.

my life is an endless series of single serving encounters.

i have no permanent relationships. once best-friends are now acquaintances, acquaintances come and go.

my life itself has little permanence.