Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
Qwitter is for Friends
Yesterday, the guys at Contrast launched Qwitter, a simple little app that sends you an email when one of your Twitter followers drops you.
This does not sound like the stuff of which social network meltdowns are made. But Qwitter was met with some frankly histrionic opinions along the lines of:
Qwitter… is likely to break relationships, sometimes before they’ve had an opportunity to prosper.
Speaking for those of us sitting at the Big Kids Table, this seems a little silly. Because if there is one thing Twitter is not good at, it’s demonstrating who does or does not like you.
Here are some reasons I may un-follow someone I like plenty:
- Dead Air: I prune periodically. If I check your stream and you have not tweeted in a week because unbeknownst to me you’re on holiday, in hospital or dead, I’ll unfollow.
- Noise Convergence: I am a fan of John Williams, despite the fact he’s a noisy fecker. However, he also has 30 people on his list that I have on mine. When I follow him, I get all the conversations between him and all those other people, and my Twitter stream triples in volume.
- RSS Preference: I have subbed to a handful of people’s Twitter streams in my RSS reader. For people who throw out a lot of links, are in wildly different time zones than me, or who Twitter with interesting people not on my list, this is a better exploratory venue for me.
- Interest Mismatch: You may be a fascinating friend in person but tweet predominantly about Rails or your new Foo startup. I hate Rails and I’m never going to use Foo, so let’s just have lunch.
I thought Eoghan McCabe’s response to the Qwitter teapot tempest was right on the money. Were there an 02 award for Blog Comment of the Month, I would nominate it.
I add and drop people all the time on Twitter. I assume people add and drop me all the time, too, but since I don’t keep an ego-vigilant eye on my follower count, I really have no idea. I did, however, let people know that if they wanted to drop me, I wasn’t going to have a hissy fit about it now that I’ll get a notice.
Nor, for the record, am I going to send them email to ask them why, or expect some kind of explanation to turn up in my Inbox.
Seriously, who has time for that level of neurosis?
Update: Since I was unable to grace Eoghan McCabe with an award, I sent him flowers instead, with the following card:
20 Oct 2008
| In: Crankypants + Social Networks |
Excellent rational summary of a storm in a teacup! A real eye opener for me to see that twitter was so ego driven and people obsessed about followers so much!
20.10.2008, 11:39 amwell said Sabrina – I’ve unfollowed people for exactly the reasons you’ve given – for example one person I was following changed job and began to talk a lot more about issues I’m not really interested in. Nothing personal.
I only signed up because I’m a big fan of the guys – if I find it upsetting I’m sure I can quit it. I wonder do Contrast have a Qwitterqwitter app for people who quit qwitter?
20.10.2008, 11:44 amWell Sabrina, I have never being called a noisy fecker, only kidding, but yes I can totally see where you are coming from, I will still follow yourself because I enjoy your tweets and I for some mental reason which I still dont understand, seem to be able to deal with the noise, sometimes even making sense of it!
I also agree in relation to qwitter in some respects, I have been known to throw the dolly out of the pram when someone unfollows, but generally they are people I have never met, that found me originally because of something I may have said so I don’t get to het up about it, the 3 occasions were when you left and soon after Tom Rafterty left, at this stage I was new to twitter and took this to heart.
Nathalie also left me and that really hit me for six, since we had met a few times outside of the net, I really took this one personally, in the end she hit the wrong button on her iPhone and all was peaceful again.
My followers come and go, and I know its due to noise, only last week Stephen Fry replied to a tweet I had put up, instantly I had over 30 new followers, I don’t expect them to last that long, but lets wait and see.
Qwitter for me is a bit of fun, nothing more to it!
20.10.2008, 11:45 amOn a related note, I wonder if you follow any of the @mcawilliams posse?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/irisheyes/2957333997/
20.10.2008, 11:58 am@Bernie, yes, that’s the point/problem. I follow 90% of the people on that list, so when I follow mcawilliams, I get all of that cross talk and my Twitter stream cup overfloweth.
@Niall Oh, you don’t know the half of it! The “you dropped me so I’m dropping you” bit is also deeply amusing, in a “I’m telling MUM!” kind of way.
@Stewart Exactly. I may not follow you on Twitter but I’ll still help you bury a body. Let’s get a bit of perspective here, right?
What can I say? You certainly know how to write an awkward message to go with a bunch of flowers! Still feel sorry for the old dear that had to read it out to me…
But thanks! We’re still laughing at it. :-)
Anyway, Sabrina, like all those with a bit of sense and maturity and perspective on the (ir)relevance of Qwitter, I agree with you completely and wholeheartedly. And that’s all I need say.
20.10.2008, 6:41 pm[...] (Previously: Qwitter is for Friends) [...]
23.01.2009, 9:18 am