Sunday, March 8, 2009

Sitting Under The Tree, Part 2

Well, hello: Welcome under the tree again! Take a seat, take a cookie, some milk (if you like) - and enjoy! (Or just do whatever you do while reading blog postings.)

I've been around here for a couple of days now. Thereby "here" means as much as with Twitter. And it's quite a place, sure it is. Sometimes it's just amusing, sometimes it makes me think.

One point I came across is the follower-following-ratio that can be found amongst the accounts. It's amazing, just figure it out: people following hundreds of feeds! - What brings me to the question that suddenly stroke me: is it possible to really, seriously follow that many tweets a day?

I made up my mind a little bit on that. Aware of the saying what assuming can make of you and me I'll do it anyway: Let's assume that the good old 80/20 rule works for this one too. Which one? Oh, yes. Thinking about 100 feeds to be followed, 20 of them might create 80 percent of the tweets. If those people are less active that may lead to about 20 tweets per hour. That's all right. But what happens in case these people have quite a mind and things to say? That can lead to about 40 to 60 tweets an hour - one tweet every minute!

Now, let's step back and take a look. One tweet every minute, at least every two minutes. What about all the people out there complaining 'bout more-than-full e-mail inboxes? Am I the only one to find that a little bit strange?

Let's change point of view a little bit: Who's to read it? Again back to e-mail for comparison. There are junk filters, spam filters, inbox rules and a lot more stuff to do filtering on what's coming in. (Well, that's why it's called inbox. Never mind.) But that's done because you sometimes just don't have a choice on what you get and who might send a message to you. And after all, honestly, a lot of messages remain in the inbox (or a subfolder) kind of unread. (No, don't lie to me...)

Back to the lovely tweets. In most cases you have a choice. You choose which feeds you'd like to follow. That may be because it's entertaining, useful or anything else. But again I'll do an assumption: you only follow tweets because you read them (most of the time). - Remember the figures from above? One tweet every minute? Can that be done? Honestly?

I don't want to give answers here. It is a very personal thing. Some people just can't get enough whereas others are overstrained quite easily. Everyone has to judge this for himself. (Please pardon my political incorrectness.) It just came to my mind...

I know of a small experiment performed by @jadito. He just asked for a reply using the words "read" in the message. He wanted to find out how many of the following/followers really read and tend to the messages they receive. I may be mistaken by the proper goals of the experiment but as far as I learned the result was quite disillusioning - even though it was expectable.

Another good point is that some people just have a life. (Yes, they have!) @nencetti asked: "If I am too busy to use Social Media sites, does hat make me Anti-Social Media?" Quite a question, isn't it? Many people "like social media", but "never have the time. Day job, marriage, life, etc." Good points I think.

So, how many feeds with tweets you can follow seriously? Yes, it depends, that's right. Everyone of us is different. That's how it's meant to be. That's why everybody can feel free to ask the question and answer it for himself. (Don't get me 'bout the political incorrectness!) As far as I am concerned, I am about to follow 50 feeds - and I am about to draw the line there. Just have to see how much noise, er, tweets there will be during the next couple of days.

Until then I will sit here, whisteling my own tunes from time to time - and listen to the birds tweeting. Sitting under the tree.

CU - GU!


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