Peter’s Soapbox

Social Networking - Friend and Follow Everyone?

I’ve noticed a few “web-celebs” have a tendency to “friend” and “follow” everyone who “friends” and “follows” them. My first impression remains: what can anyone do with all that chatter?

For example, Robert Scoble, an “A-List blogger,” claims he follows everyone that follows him. He’s got 5,000 friends in Facebook (the current limit), and is following 6,946 (at the time of this writing) people on Twitter. Author J.C. Hutchins has 741 followers and is following 745.

I can’t imagine what that’s like. I suppose since I review my Twitter and Facebook feeds via RSS, my method simply would not work, and I’d miss, well almost everything. From a “snapshot in time” perspective, these guys’ method may be more interesting, but if your motive is more like mine, to actually track everything that goes into your feed, it’s practically impossible to manage the sheer volume of noise that is going to be flying through that stream.

So, just for kicks, I am following more of the folks who follow me on Twitter. If I end up not following you after a period of time, I apologize in advance. I’m sure it’s not because the content of your feed is boring, I just don’t have the time to track it all (and play World of Warcraft). Okay, maybe it’s because it was a tiny bit boring, but please don’t assume that. Besides, it’s hard to compete with World of Warcraft.