SocialToo Extends Battle Against Twitter DM Spam With New Feature

SocialToo, a social Web utility aimed at enhancing your experience on Twitter, Facebook and other sites, is well known for its autofollowing capabilities. But with the rise of marketing and spam on some sites, Twitter especially, the noise has gotten out of control for some people - as you have seen a small number unfollow all their connections, in effect rebooting their accounts, and others complain mightily about the noise that has arisen from junk direct messages. With a new feature introduced today, SocialToo has made it very easy to stop those broadcasting junk into your stream with one click.

The new feature extends Twitter's capability of bringing direct messages to your e-mail, and adds options below to let you report the sender as spam, block them, or report them as sending automated direct messages. And unlike competitors, including Topify, it can be done without having to send this specific message to one of their dedicated e-mail addresses.

As an advisor to SocialToo, I often get access to some of the features early, and this enhancement has already paid dividends. Now, instead of just manually deleting the DM, I can click and send the person's annoyance away forever.



One DM via SocialToo I Was Ready to Zap

More than just this utility, SocialToo lets you set up a blacklist of keywords from within the site that you may never want to see in DMs, ever. That means you never have to see updates from Mafia Wars or Spymaster or whatever your least favorite junk spam of the week is. That can be found in your SocialToo account's preference tab here: http://socialtoo.com/twitter

If there is a way to communicate with people, spammers will do their part to find an exploit. SocialToo is trying to be part of the solution and helping to clean up your social networking experience.

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Disclosure: I am an advisor to SocialToo

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SocialToo Status Extends Facebook Updates to Twitter

Last week, many people were surprised by Facebook releasing a utility that let Fan Page owners update Twitter from the popular social network. But some thought Facebook did not go far enough - as individuals could not utilize this tool to broadcast their own update from their profiles. This morning, Jesse Stay's SocialToo launched a feature which will let users update both Facebook and Twitter - not just for their fan pages, but from anywhere on the site.

Using the SocialToo Status application, you can share your personal status from Facebook to your personal news feed, as well as Twitter.

If you are already a SocialToo user, go to http://www.socialtoo.com and click the "Facebook App" link to activate SocialToo Status. Once the application is enabled for your account, you will see a SocialToo Status icon in the "attachments" section of Facebook, which you can update from the home screen, or your personal profile. If you have already associated your Twitter account with Facebook, it will ask for permission to publish, and following this, you're all set. You can even grant the application permission to publish from fan pages you may run as well.


If enabled, my posts from Facebook can flow to Twitter as well.

For a long time, power users of social media tools have found ways to bring their Twitter updates into Facebook. But now, you're seeing the first tools start to take data the other direction. You can also find the SocialToo application on Facebook here: http://apps.facebook.com/socialtoo/status.

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Disclosure: I am an advisor to SocialToo

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To Jump on the Massive Unfollowing Trend Would Be a Mistake

For weeks, in my ever-increasing list of potential future blog post topics, I have had one titled, "What If I Purged My Twitter Followers?". Trust me, the option has crossed my mind on the rare occasion I log in and try to use Twitter or any of its 3rd party apps in the way the Twitter team had intended - as I watch update after inane update swim in a sea of half-baked offers and hashtaggery. But even as I see some notable folks talking about taking apart their list of connections with the subtlety of Jack Nicholson wielding an axe in The Shining, I'm still ignoring the temptation to join them. While I may weed out some clear spammers now and again, I think to massively prune my list would introduce more problems, real and emotional, than it would present solutions.

Since I started using Twitter in early 2008, I have somehow amassed more than 12,000 connections. Thanks to my employing an auto-follow capability from SocialToo, a company run by Jesse Stay who I advise, those who add me as a connection in Twitter gain a reciprocal move almost instantaneously, without my lifting a finger. While some may think this is "disingenuous", doing so saves me the time of reviewing each new follower one by one to gauge "worthiness", and it also enables them to send me direct messages - as Twitter will block the capability otherwise.


Scoble's Unfollowing Is Easily Seen Via TwitterCounter
I recognize there are problems with spammers on Twitter. I get my fair share of automated direct messages. I see ridiculous accounts that look more like robots than people. But if I set an artificial standard that required me to have a personal relationship with an individual in order to follow them on Twitter or any network, I would be selling myself short in terms of getting to potentially know the person, and I would be selling them short by not giving them a chance when it is likely they just wanted to be connected in an environment where they were comfortable.

Assuming I were to abstain from using an auto-unfollow service (SocialToo does this also), and I took 10 seconds to review each of the 12,000 accounts, it would take more than 33 hours to adequately cleanse my feed. And I know if I did use an unfollowing service, a lot of great people would be thrown out with the bathwater. I saw Scoble's experiment, only to have it impact friends of mine like Drew Olanoff and Kent Newsome, who are both real humans who contribute on Twitter and other networks. I know, without question, that there are many future peers on the Web that I just haven't had the luck to meet yet.

Benjamin Franklin, once paraphrasing Blackstone's formulation, said, "It is better [one hundred] guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer." So too do I see it better that 100 spammers fill my feed than I lose access to the innocents who remain. I am not so self-centered as to believe I know the full set of people who I can learn from and derive value. So don't look for me to start shaking my numbers down on any of the networks - even if it is getting more popular.

Also see: Twitter is for Following Topics and Listening, Not for Following People from February 26th for more background on this.

Podcast: TheSocialGeeks: I Want the Post, Not the Pre

Thanks to bumps in my schedule, including work, and of course, the twins, combined with the complexities of trying to get seven people in three time zones to get synched up, it has been some time since we got to participate in TheSocialGeeks podcast, chaired by Chris Miller (otherwise known as IdoNotes).

But on Wednesday, we made it, and got the chance to record. In addition to Chris and me, were Sarah Perez and Wayne Sutton.

In the podcast, which I have made available for download below, we discuss:

• Facebook's Vanity URL Rush
• LiveFlows
• Floxee
• Monetization of Twitter Streams
• Social Identity Management
• The Palm Pre
• SocialToo and other premium Twitter apps

You can read more about it in Chris' site, or Download the Recording Now. You can also: Subscribe in iTunes

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Twitter Launches Enhanced New Follower E-mails

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Facebook/FriendFeed)

It would appear that Twitter has launched a brand new format for their new follower notification E-mails they send out to users opting to be alerted to new followers. The e-mails are now in a prettier HTML format and include the new follower's name, Twitter username, and picture. They also include the number of updates, number of people they follow, and number of followers they have. While users aren't given the option to follow straight from the e-mail, you can block the user by clicking on a link in the e-mail.

It would appear as though Twitter is now competing head-to-head to the recently sold business, Twimailer and another popular e-mail service, Topify.  Both services provide similar data, and, in addition, show recent Tweets and other related data to the user to help in deciding whether one should follow or not.  These service also do the same with DMs a user receives through Twitter.  It will be interesting to see if Twitter decides to venture further into this area or if these other services will still be able to thrive.

The New Look for Twitter E-mail Notifications

With the current lack of API for new follows on Twitter (besides these e-mails), it will remain hard for any service to scale to mass proportions for free and afford to add new servers to meet Twitter's API limit demands and simple load for communicating with the API.  This will become even harder as advertisers cut back more and more on spending for these types of applications.

The Old Look for Twitter E-mail Notifications

It was for this same reason that (full disclosure), my own service, SocialToo recently launched a new prioritized e-mail service that you can receive bulk updates of your new followers, as well as unfollowers, along with information about each one. We just announced a new pricing model that you can purchase these daily e-mails for a one-time $20 fee.  Such a model was necessary to pay for a scalable architecture, and you can likely expect the same from many other Twitter apps in the near future.

As Twitter grows, with no known roadmap or business model, developers and businesses should use caution that their businesses can scale and adapt as Twitter, or Facebook, or any other social network or API they are building on top of has the threat to venture into their territory.  There is no word from Twitter yet on these new changes.

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Facebook Getting Ready to Charge for Vanity Nicknames?

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Facebook/FriendFeed)

My friend, Jason McGowan, sent me a screenshot that, if it is what it appears to be, suggests Facebook may be getting ready to add a new strategy to its business plan. It appears that select users are seeing polls in Facebook, asking if they would pay to be able to have their own vanity nickname on the network.

The vanity id is currently in beta for a select group of users such as TechCrunch, Loic Lemuer, AllFacebook, and others, and allows you to have http://facebook.com/yournick point to your Facebook Page. In addition, from their mobile phones, users can send "fan nickname" to Facebook and become

fans of your Page from wherever they are. This would be useful, for instance, in a Baseball or Football stadium during a game to enter people into a contest or become fans of the team. It would appear with these polls that Facebook also intends to allow this to point to individual user profiles as well.

Currently services like my own SocialToo and others provide short, easy-to-remember URLs that redirect to your Facebook profile. Having such a vanity URL would enable users to have an even easier to rememb

er URL, based on the Facebook.com domain that you could pass out to your friends. I personally would pay for this - it's worth both the brand recognition, and SEO it would give any brand.

The vanity URLs also come with even more pressure from Google, who just recently launched their own short URL and user profile system. Google's user profiles are 100% free, and rely on your Google account username by default. (See mine here)

Having asked Facebook for entrance into the vanity URL program for both myself and SocialToo and received no response (hint, hint), I would assume Facebook is just waiting for the right time to launch this to all. I'm excited to see this program come forth and hope Facebook can soon allow many more into the program.

You can add yourself as a Fan to my Page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jesse-Stay/12327140265

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Twitter Caps Following Limits, Denting Auto-Follow Services

Another day, another Twitter limit that impacts its developers. Following on to Twitter's statement last month about auto-following practices being "disingenuous", the company is back at it again, telling users that "it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts", and limiting the number of accounts that a single person can follow in a day to 1,000. While that may sound reasoned in practice, it's going to impact the way highly visible accounts can use the service, and again, throw a monkey wrench into entrepreneurs who are looking to fill gaps in Twitter's service.

In the last few weeks, Web and print media have been awash in discussion of some of the largest accounts on Twitter reaching the 1 million follower mark. Assuming Ashton Kutcher and others were to follow Twitter's rule to only follow 1,000 new accounts a day, it would take Ashton 3 years to follow all that follow him, assuming no more new users found his account interesting. It seems Twitter would prefer that these celebrity accounts only follow, say... 93 as Ashton does, rather than the nearly 400,000 Britney Spears follows, which I would guess would be even higher if it weren't for Twitter's API troubles.

I speak to this point not so much as a standard Twitter user, but also as an advisor to SocialToo, which Jesse Stay has worked on to help Twitter users like Guy Kawasaki, myself and many much more visible accounts to stay even on their following and followers, as well as many other features. One of the premium options SocialToo has offered has been a "catch up" option, where users could catch up and follow all those who they were not previously following. Now, SocialToo could only add a maximum of 1,000 a day, making the service good for smaller users, but not for the rapidly-expanding numbers we see on many accounts.

Lest you think I'm just trying to cover for SocialToo here, take a look at how other Twitter developers in the last week by slowness and caps that Twitter is placing on their ability to get data to feed their services. Mr. Tweet has been reporting service disruptions and apologizing to users and Tweet Later reports problems getting data from Twitter. TweetLater even notes from earlier this evening, "At the time of writing there were 1.7 million unprocessed API calls on the processing queue, and the queue is still growing every second."

It's likely Twitter is issuing this newest limit to try and stop spammers and go after the worms that have recently impacted the system. But the ecosystem that has helped the service grow to such high visibility is getting impacted. Hopefully there can soon be a resolution that lets Twitter be secure the right people with the right tools are doing the right things, and that the bad guys are being appropriately stopped in their tracks.

Stop Telling Me How to Use Your Products

In recent weeks, there have been a number of incidents where high profile online services have gotten into something of a battle with their users. Be it the on again off again user interface debate between Facebook and its user base, or Twitter's deciding just what is the right way or the wrong way to use their service, both products have ended up telling their own customers that they know best, and you should just suck it up. During these debates, some have said the best way to drive a product forward was to never compromise and listen to your users, while others celebrated the users getting a voice at the table.

But we're missing a major issue that I want to address. I'm fine with companies making changes to their interface, or adding features, or even deciding to prioritize some issues over others. That's business. But don't tell me how to use your products. Don't tell me what is the right way or the wrong way to use a product, when you've given us tools.

Take for example the hubris from Biz Stone at Twitter in his note to individual customers who were relying on their providing autofollow capabilities. Most specifically, he said:

"We’re going to discontinue autofollow because this behavior sends the wrong message. Namely, it is unlikely that anyone can actually read tweets from thousands of accounts which makes this activity disingenuous."

Oh really? What a bunch of junk this is. What's next? Google Reader telling us that there should be a limit to the number of RSS feeds we subscribe to, or that Yahoo!, Hotmail and GMail will limit the number of new e-mails we can receive in a day? After all, couldn't they write that "nobody can actually read e-mails from thousands of people which makes this activity disingenuous"?

Here's the reality - people are going to use products the way they want to, especially if you build a product that is flexible. And they will often use them in ways you never expected, or had even considered when you were first designing. And as you continue to build your service out, the solution is not to tell users there is "one right way", but instead to consider how you can make your product even better to an increasing number of people.

What I have seen from companies like Twitter and Facebook is a belief that you should only be connected to people you know in real life, and that you should only have a small number of people to be connected with. Yes, Facebook's dismissing the 5,000 limit, and yes, they're opening up to companies and fan pages, but they still require you to enter your true first and last name, and demand a synchronous follow.

Twitter's limits are even worse. What's so bizarre about this most recent volley about users being "disingenuous" by using auto-follow is how it impacts their most popular users. Where's the outrage that Barack Obama clearly uses auto-following software? Do you think Twitter is going to tell Obama that he can't actually follow 586,000 users? Do you think they are going to tell Robert Scoble that it is "disingenuous" to follow 85,000 people?

I also use a third party auto-following service from SocialToo (where I'm also an advisor). I use it because Twitter, thanks to other limitations in their product, will let me send direct messages only to those who follow me, and I want to let them contact me directly.

What Twitter and Facebook are doing by trying to tell their users that they know the right way to use their products is putting themselves above the users, and acting in an authoritative, but naive, manner. I think Biz' comment that it was "disingenuous" to follow thousands of accounts is covering the fact that Twitter's infrastructure wasn't meant to support such activity.

At risk of echoing Thomas Hawk's comment that I'm "Mr. FriendFeed", it's worth noting again that FriendFeed doesn't tell me how to or how not to use their products, and they aren't setting limits. They put out a service, and let the users have at it. That's impressive, and a major reason of why I'm bullish on what they do. For the rest of you developers who keep setting limits and claiming it's not your fault, but your users, you're wrong.

The Newest Annoyance on Twitter: Follow and Refollow Spam

Unless you've turned off notifications when users follow you on Twitter, you are no doubt used to the e-mail messages you get when somebody has opted into seeing your updates. Follower updates are a staple of social services - and if you are maniacal about keeping e-mail like I am, you can start to see trends on the data, including when people are oddly manipulating the system, in a way that's not normal. And for whatever reason, a small number of Twitter accounts look like they regularly follow me multiple times a day.

I use auto-follow capabilities from SocialToo, letting me automatically opt in to see followers' updates. The way I use Twitter means there is little downside to having new incremental users in my feeds. So, in theory, if the user follows me just once - it's one and done. And I just don't see too much benefit to these new follow and refollow bots, even if I try to get creative.

Take a look at two examples: @PoliticalUpdate and @twtr.us.

Twice a day, starting on February 27th, I have been followed by @twtr.us, the first time at 3:56 a.m. my time, and a second time, at 5 p.m. that same day. Every day.


Also starting on February 27th, the account @PoliticalUpdate has been following twice a day - at 2:34 a.m. my time, and a second time after 11:35 a.m. (only nine hours later). Again, every single day.


So what is the benefit of such a clearly robotic practice? Is the idea that the follow notifications are a form of advertising, giving me a chance to see their name more than once, and increasing the times I'll go to check out their Twitter page? Do they also think we're naive enough to not notice?

Whatever product it is that both @PoliticalUpdate and @twtr.us are using does not contribute to the community in any way, and should be turned off. There is some good news, I guess, in that the twtr.us account looks to have been suspended, but my bet is that there are more accounts out there using the same service, and it should be stopped.

Know any other accounts who are using follow and refollow spam? Let me know in the comments. Jesse Stay, who runs SocialToo, and I would absolutely be interested in keeping them out of your in box.

(Also: See an earlier discussion on FriendFeed)

SocialToo Launches a War Against Auto-DMs

As Twitter growth has accelerated, so too have some of the annoyances associated with the service - including the creation of spam bots, fake accounts impersonating others, and automated direct messages, many of which essentially include spam links. After initially including the option to send automated direct messages from within his social networking service, Jesse Stay of SocialToo is stopping the practice, immediately, and leading the charge to block automated direct messages (or DMs) from similar products.

As Jesse wrote in a post this morning (Time to Take a Stand - Yes, We’re Ending the DMs), "it seems many people either have not understood the service, or are simply abusing it, as I believe the spammers have started to take over this system."

In a case where a disruptive minority negated any positive benefits from the majority of above-board users, the ensuing complaints about auto-DM spam have escalated in recent weeks. Auto-DMs were behind much of the week's frustrations voiced by Loic LeMeur, which I previously covered here.

As an advisor to SocialToo, I am especially sensitive to the way Jesse's service, and its impact across Twitter and other networks, is perceived. Before he made the decision to stop the practice, we traded many e-mails and had many phone calls about what was the right thing to do, and would he risk losing some of his users by stopping one feature, or gain more because he took the extra step, which we consider to be right.

Every morning, I've opened my e-mail and been hit with a good number of updates from Twitter. Some might be following notifications, but many more are direct message nonsense. While I do get the occasional legitimate direct message, from the team of bloggers here, or from folks like Loic and Om Malik, I'm almost predisposed to delete, thanks to abuse from the surrounding riff-raff. As a SocialToo user, I am hoping this step by Jesse helps to clean up my Twitter and my e-mail, and that other services will follow suit.

Twitter is for Following Topics and Listening, Not for Following People

Another slow news week means another opportunity to debate the "right way" to follow or be followed - and per usual, the forum is Twitter. Once described to me as the "backstage" discussion to the blogosphere's concert hall, there can occasionally be fisticuffs, especially when bigger personalities are involved. And tonight, Loic Le Meur and Robert Scoble are publicly debating whether following thousands of people on Twitter makes sense - with particular focus on whether programs that let you auto-follow add value, or instead, give credibility to people who aren't friends at all, but are spammers, or worse.

Even if you are a rabid information junkie, the constant updates from Twitter can be too much for anybody to absorb, even with a few hundred connections. To believe that I am seeing all of a friend's updates with 6,000 connections, or that Scoble can see the updates from ten times that many, is clearly impossible. So while a small population of Twitter is using the service to follow individual's updates, a huge number are instead using it to broadcast updates, monitor keywords, and occasionally, send direct messages to people or reply in public. Twitter is simply too much to handle as conversations are lost, people's updates can be of any type, and the limitations of the service, including the much-discussed 140 character boundary, make it a poor foundation for exchanging ideas in a crowd.

I use a auto-follow program from SocialToo and am an advisor to the company, run by Jesse Stay. I don't auto-follow to necessarily see an individual's updates, and I don't auto-follow to give a stamp of approval to who they are, or their Twitter stream. But I do use it to let me open up the opportunity to send direct messages to them, and they to me, and because on the occasions I do check in on Twitter, I want to at least have the opportunity to see their updates. But it does not mean I see their Tweets on a regular basis in any way.

That's right. I don't read your tweets. Practically the only way I would see your tweets is if I was following you on FriendFeed, if you were in one of my lists I read regularly, and even more likely, if that tweet got comments and likes, pushing it to the top of my visibility. Alternatively, I will have seen your tweets if you mention my user ID, the company I work for, or if you are mentioning a hashtag or a topic I am following.

When I do want to see an individual's tweets, I will go to their user page and scroll down to read, or I will check their FriendFeed. But I am not sitting with the Web interface open, or constantly refreshing TweetDeck, only to hit the API limit.

I use Twitter because I know my updates to Twitter go to both Facebook and FriendFeed, where I do have personal conversations and a real platform for discussion. I use Twitter for the opportunity to send instant messages, publicly, to individuals or groups. And I use Twitter to monitor mentions of me or my company via their search engine. But if I were to "really" follow people the way that some people think they are being followed, I would have to follow the new trend and start a massive unfollow process, eradicating more than 90 percent of those my Twitter account is following today.

Twitter has something special - a real-time search engine that can instantly take the temperature of today's Web users. It has a good platform to say what you are doing right now. But it does not have a good platform to follow people, or a large group of people, and it does not have a good platform for conversation. If you want people and discussion go to Facebook and FriendFeed. If you want to get a litmus test on a topic, go on and use Twitter. Just don't think I'm reading your Tweets. I know you don't see mine.

Vote for Your Favorite Super Bowl Ad on Twitter Using SocialToo

Watching and judging the best Super Bowl advertisements each year has become as traditional as the game itself. While the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals will be battling it out on the field for the Vince Lombardi trophy, companies and advertising agencies themselves are looking for their own big prize - tremendous visibility in front of one of the world's biggest audiences.

Tomorrow, thanks to an idea spawned by Brian Solis, carrying on a tradition run by Jeremiah Owyang last year, we will be holding a Twitter-wide survey, using SocialToo, to get the opinions of thousands of people, live, during and after the big game. (Also see: Jeremiah's post)

To participate in tomorrow's big survey, and say which Super Bowl commercial was the big one, go to: http://socialtoo.com/survey/view/1221 and vote.

You can also discuss the ads, as they happen, just by posting your thoughts to Twitter and adding the hashtag: #superbowlads. When you use that hashtag, your comment will be added below the survey on SocialToo.

The results will be tabulated after the game. Participating to help spread the word are Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang, Guy Kawasaki, Jesse Stay, Chris Heuer, and others.

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DISCLOSURE: I am an advisor to SocialToo.

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The Danger of Changing The Baseline

By Rob Diana of Regular Geek (Twitter/FriendFeed)


There has been a lot of discussion regarding the recent announcement about Twitter's API limiting. The SocialToo blog has a very good overview of the situation. Granted I am not a fan of the limitations, but that is not the reason for this post. Changing the limits is the real problem.

The baseline for any application is when it is released. Any updates or new features added to an application reset the baseline to a higher level. The user and developer community are your best friends during this cycle. It can be argued that Twitter would not be nearly as popular if there was no API or third party applications for it. However, if you decide to change something in an application, and the net effect is a decrease in functionality, it feels like you have taken something away. For example, Jesse Stay, the founder of SocialToo, realizes that these limits now change the way applications can use the API:

Many of the services you have come to love for Twitter, including those of our competitors, and many other Twitter-based services are in jeopardy. This is scary news as an entrepreneur and Twitter developer. Twitter has basically just limited how big any Twitter-based business can grow.

Changing The Baseline

The real problem is that these limits appeared long after the API was released. Twitter has consistently removed functionality during peak traffic periods as well. Things like deleting direct messages or viewing older messages often gets disabled. This does not provide a good user experience.

Twitter is not the only one doing this either. Google has also recently done this for their Google Apps product.

When Google Apps first launched up to 200 user accounts could be created for each business under the free version. But that limit was quietly reduced to just 100 user accounts. And then when the reseller program was announced earlier this month, the limit was cut in half again, to just 50 accounts.

Obviously, this is bad for the users and good for Google. However, lowering this limit is devaluing the service that Google is supplying. Sometimes a company will have a promotion when first launched where the account limit is temporarily raised, but it is also known that it is temporary. In Google's case, the Apps offering has been around as long as Twitter has. So, it is not the case of a quick change, it has been changing over the course of years.

The Danger

The real danger appears after the changes take effect. If the changes or limits are drastic enough, the popularity of the application could decrease rapidly. In some instances, your users could rebel or even start building an alternative product. The idea is that the application must always move forward. In some cases, moving forward may mean a small step back, like a little used feature that is poorly implemented gets removed until a rebuild of the feature is ready.

For startups, losing popularity or even a small decrease in users or hype could mean the end of the line. In the case of Google Apps, lowering the number of free users may actually drive small companies away from them. Many small companies may be using Google Apps because it is free, and they can grow with the service. Now, with a limit of 50 free users, companies need to make decisions on Google Apps or other online application suites shortly after hiring employees.

In reality, you want to push change for the better. You want to keep your customers as happy as possible. Enforcing new limits long after releasing features can just alienate your users. Some level of trust will be lost because it feels like they were tricked by your earlier kindness.

Read more by Rob Diana at RegularGeek.com.

Every Time I Try To Embrace Twitter, They Push Us Away

As an advisor to SocialToo, Jesse Stay, the developer of the service, and I trade a lot of e-mail... we also talk on the phone and exchange direct messages via Twitter on how to improve his service. Some of the ideas I've had already have made a small impact on the service, while other pieces will come much later. But last night, Jesse sounded an alarm that the service itself could be in jeopardy, thanks to proposed changes from Twitter's API team that would set limits which essentially cripple SocialToo's capability. And as much as I want to champion the immediacy of Twitter, the real-time aspects of the service, the community, and its outstanding search engine, this isn't the first time I've been left feeling cold about how the team has impacted its users or development community.

Previous Discussion:

• Twitter Chokes Unauthenticated API Requests By IP, Sites Gasp for Air

If you have your head buried in RSS feeds and the tech Web, you've likely already seen the major issue - either from the SocialToo blog itself, or on sites like ReadWriteWeb, CNET and others, including Chris Charabaruk and TweetLiberty. Essentially, the limits are a hard number that aggressive services could easily surpass, assuming solid customer growth. And as developers like Jesse and others start to use the Twitter community and trends as their data set, they keep running into roadblocks. At first, Twitter was failing due to simple aspects of scale, but now, it seems as they make headlines for record traffic and involvement in world news, they are making headlines again for the wrong reasons - things that could be better massaged with improved tact and transparency.

Twitter's move, at its heart, looks to be one to protect themselves. As API Lead Alex Payne wrote yesterday, "This is essentially a preventative measure to ensure that no one API client, even a whitelisted account or IP, can consume an inordinate amount of our resoures." (sic)

But there didn't seem to be any options for services, even whitelisted ones like SocialToo, to get a work-around. There was not an option to pay to get increased access capabilities, or even tips on how to optimize code so that it takes less effort to achieve the same result. Twitter wants revenue, and the development team wants Twitter to succeed. So does everybody else, essentially. But my understanding is that Twitter has made it very difficult for some services to do the things users are asking for - including automatic following and unfollowing, because they aren't really that interested in providing such functionality. That doesn't sound promising for developers of SocialToo, Qwitter, FriendOrFollow and others. What other providers, such as FriendFeed and Facebook, offer in full, Twitter parcels out in bits and pieces, and seemingly expect the community to be grateful for it.

So now, Jesse and others are faced with a tough situation - is it even possible to optimize their code? Should they ditch Twitter as a development platform altogether because the company treats them like leeches instead of celebrating their efforts? Jesse asked in an e-mail, "Why develop for the Twitter platform any more if we know we can only grow to your limit?", adding one option for him may just be to exclude the most popular users outright to reduce stress on the system.

I'm not sensing a developer mutiny overnight. Twitter at this point has practically become a mainstay of most digerati's online experiences. Even if there are products that are better, Twitter has the momentum. Twitter has the growth and the buzz. But they are acting like they know it. Alex followed on to today's discussions, via Twitter of course, saying: "If people just asked us rather than making assumptions, there would be no story :)" But I'll be direct here - I saw Jesse's questions. He asks lots of questions and gets some answers. There is still a story. The story is that people who have made some very innovative and interesting products on a service with no revenue are very concerned about whether they can trust Twitter and if Twitter wants them to succeed - period.

SocialToo Helps Prevent You From Auto-Following Spammers

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DISCLOSURE: I am an advisor to SocialToo. (Background Here)

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The debate of whether you should automatically follow Twitter accounts that follow your updates is one that has no single answer. In fact, this weekend saw a pair of posts with opposing views on the matter. The first, from CNET, said auto-following was the way to go. The second, from Techwag, said it was in fact, the wrong idea. One of Dan Morrill's major reasons to "NOT follow everyone", as he put it, was the high amount of Twitter spam on the service, as he encountered examples of people who followed him but had later been suspended.

There's no question that Twitter spammers have caught on to the auto-follow game. When I first signed up for SocialToo and started to get daily e-mails dictating how many new followers I had, and how many followers I had lost in a single day, I noticed names in both lists in just about every single e-mail. On December 23rd, I posted to Twitter: "SocialToo shows that more than 1/2 of my Twitter unfollows each day are from those who followed on the same day, hoping to be auto-followed."

The ensuing discussion, which involved Jesse Stay, the author of SocialToo, led to a new feature he rolled out last night - letting SocialToo users automatically filter who they auto-follow. (See: Fight Twitter Spam With Unfollow Filters) The new wrinkle to the "all in" or "all out" strategy essentially says if a user unfollows you in a set number of days which you specify, you'll unfollow them as well. Does it sound like too much of a niche? Well, it's not. Now, any would-be spammer who follows me and unfollows in the next two days goes away. I'll never see their tweets (assuming I actually used the regular Twitter interface, which I don't), and they won't show up in my "following" list - which is more important.


Speaking of synching up your followers and who you follow, which I did on my Twitter stream last night, SocialToo also quietly added a feature that lets you go back and follow every single person who is following you now, for just five bucks. So if you've somehow ended up with a lot more people following you than you're watching, SocialToo has a quick solution that won't have you going one by one in Twitter and clicking. So, check that out as well, especially if your follower count is up and to the right, like many people of late.

We may not all agree on whether you should be following all who pass through your feed, but I'm sure we all agree we shouldn't be following spammers. SocialToo's approach is a good start, until Twitter can remove all the evil-doers from the database.

I've Taken a New Advisory Role With SocialToo

One of the most fun and rewarding byproducts of operating this blog has been to connect with entrepreneurs looking to improve their product and gain early feedback. Sometimes, I can help by doing more than just spreading the word about services I like, but get the opportunity to take time to suggest new product features, point out what I consider to be flaws, and suggest how they can better adjust to address competitors. In the majority of cases, this takes place ad hoc via e-mail or phone. In rarer cases still, I find a working relationship with an individual and the product such that we both find our cooperation mutually beneficial and have taken the next step to make it formal.

As I discussed and disclosed back In August, one of those roles was when I became an advisor to ReadBurner. Tonight, I wanted to update you and let you know I have also taken a similar role with SocialToo, which Jesse Stay, a contributor to this site, and the service's CEO, calls "your companion to the Social Web."

Since first learning of SocialToo this summer, and using it for several months, I have become very interested not just in what the product does today - primarily helping to quietly manage your Twitter account in the background, and to deliver social surveys to friends on multiple social networks, but also in a few potential directions I saw as next steps for the product.

Without Jesse's prompting, in November, I sent him a detailed outline of a new product derivative of SocialToo, which I would believe will fulfill a still-unanswered gap in the social networking space. Jesse, having significant experience coding programs for not just Twitter, but Identica and Facebook as well, seemed like the logical partner for some of my ideas. Jesse and I have since talked many times in regards to how I think his service can take the leap from obscurity to being more robust and visible, as it grows in capability and users.

As with the ReadBurner relationship, I aim to continue being transparent with you and other developers who believe they might be competitors to or partners with SocialToo in some way. And while I may be more closely tied with Jesse and the service going forward, helping to impact and review the product's roadmap, I expect to be even more critical than before, sometimes behind the scenes, and sometimes publicly, as I have with ReadBurner. I will also update my about page to reflect the relationship.

As a side note, do I expect to quit my day job and fill my LinkedIn profile with scads of advisory roles, although some of you noted the addition of SocialToo to the list over the weekend? No. But when opportunities arise to help build new companies and services that will help the Web and sound like something I want in a big way, I am more than eager to make my time available. Additionally, the relationship with SocialToo should not have any impact on Jesse's postings here. Jesse for the better part of four months has covered those topics he finds interesting, and will continue to do so. And when it makes sense that he disclose his SocialToo position, he will do so.

To learn more about SocialToo as it stands today, go to www.socialtoo.com. Jesse Stay's personal blog can be found at: www.staynalive.com.

Arrington? Le Meur? Scoble? Everybody's Right About "Authority".

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

This weekend's blog flareup on whether Twitter should track the "authority" of a user, based primarily on the number of followers, has a number of people up in arms. One side says it makes sense. After all, Technorati and Google have always tracked influence. Others say the following number can be easily manipulated, and has no weight. First of all, before we address the issues, why am I writing this on LouisGray.com and not my own blog, StayNAlive.com?  It largely comes down to numbers.  LouisGray.com has near 4,000 RSS subscribers, while my blog only has 500.  Aside from the fact that I enjoy the team of great writers I work with on this blog, I have a much louder, and because of that, more authoritative, voice here.  More people listen with a larger audience than those with a small audience.  And like it or not, all bloggers trying to compete play the numbers game - that's simple marketing.

Background

Recently Loic Le Meur wrote a post, suggesting that Twitter Search sort their results by most popular on Twitter.  So, for example, if Robert Scoble has more followers than Michael Arrington, Scoble's posts will appear higher than Arrington's in the search results.  Scoble responded with a blog post suggesting Lemeur was wrong, saying that the number of people you follow is more important than those who follow you.  Today, Arrington reignited the flames with another follow-on post, supporting Le Meur, effectively saying the controversy was much ado about little, that it wasn't a separation from the haves and have nots, but instead, a simple recommendation to add to Twitter search.

So we have two business men, trying to find more readers and users to build revenue for their businesses (Arrington runs a content business, TechCrunch.com, while Le Meur runs a Video publishing service, Seesmic).  At the same time we have a video blogger, Robert Scoble, trying to find new content, which in turn generates revenue for the business he works for by building unique content.  He's very good at that, but They're both right.

Of course Arrington and Le Meur want more followers, and preference placed on followers - they benefit by doing so.  Their experience, as businessmen trying to generate revenue for their business, shows that more followers can both directly and indirectly translate into revenue for the businesses they own and run.  Arrington, after today's article, will generate even more readers of his blog because of the discussion going on about this on Twitter and FriendFeed.  That converts to more followers, which in turn sends them back to TechCrunch.com.

If I launch a new feature for SocialToo.com (Disclosure - I am CEO and co-founder of SocialToo.com, a service that, among many other features, enables you to auto-follow those that follow you on Twitter and other networks.), I have 4,000 followers I can now announce that to.  A year ago, when I was only at a few hundred, that announcement would not have made anywhere near an impact.  Now, with a sound business model, I have the potential to convert many more users to drive both traffic and revenue to the service.  The same goes with Arrington and TechCrunch, and Le Meur and Seesmic.  They're smart businessmen.  Notice Guy Kawasaki, another smart businessman said the same thing.

At the same time, it makes complete sense that Scoble places his value on the people he follows. Scoble's value is in the information he learns.  It's a sound strategy for a journalist, a PR professional, or a blogger.  After all, I met Scoble through following him on Twitter and FriendFeed (in person even!).  I also met Guy Kawasaki by following him on Twitter, as did I Chris Pirillo, and following the Tweets of the two of them was the premise behind me starting SocialToo.com.  There is value in that as well.  Scoble, and others can be experts, because of the people they follow - that is powerful.  It should also be noted that Scoble has a lot of followers because of this strategy.  This really is a "Chicken or the Egg" argument!

Social Networking is About the Experience for the Individual

The power of Social Networking is that it allows each individual to develop their own personalized experience on the web.  By the people they follow, they get the content they want.  By the people that follow them, they are given a voice outside of that personal world.  Scoble is right - you are defined by the people you follow.  I've talked about that here before - relationships define the individual.

However, a relationship is a two-way connection.  In the end it's those that follow you that can vouch for who you are, and what type of person they perceive you as.  If anyone were to steal my identity, I now have 4,000 people that can vouch it's the real me.  Of course there are ways around this, but it's still a form of identity, and will solidify even more as technology evolves.

I am a smarter person because of the people I follow - I've mentioned before that I separate those I pay attention to from those I follow.  That's how I follow smart people.  At the same time, I can ask any question now, and get multiple answers to that question from my 4,000+ followers.  I couldn't do that when I had only a few hundred.  I'm also smarter because of the people the follow me!  The people that follow me are very valuable, and make me a more authoritative source, just as the people I follow do.

I really don't think there is any right or wrong answer here.  I think Scoble, Arrington, and Lemeur are all right - it's important to follow smart people, yet at the same time your followers are just as important.  I don't think either one is any more valuable than the other on a general level - it varies on a person-to-person experience, and that is why you see them arguing over it.  That's the amazing thing behind Social Networking - there is no right or wrong answer because each individual can define their own!

In a perfect world, Twitter Search would provide multiple filters, some based on followers, some based on people you follow, some based on the number of people you converse with directly in your network of friends and followers.  The more personalized that search becomes, the more valuable it becomes to the individual.  "Authority" is determined by the individual.  Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise.

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

10 Top New Web Services of 2008 and Their 2009 Forecast

2008 has been both an exciting year and a very trying year for the world of Web innovation.

When the year kicked off, we were still in the middle of Web 2.0 fever. We were just two months removed from Microsoft having invested $240 million in Facebook at a stratospheric $15 billion. In the first week of January, Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang made his first appearance at CES and promised the company was "ready and excited". By mid-month, Pownce launched to the public to offer an alternative to Twitter. And by the end of January, Twitter crashed hard - for the first time.

It turns out that Twitter's crash might have been the canary in the coal mine. Even looking at January 2008, and considering what has happened to Facebook's valuation, Jerry Yang's reign as CEO of Yahoo!, and the eventual extinguishing of Pownce in the ensuing months and it almost seems unbelievable. Of course, as you know, Twitter crashed again and again throughout the year, and in parallel, so did the fortunes of many Web companies, from the smallest startup looking to raise funds, to the monoliths, including Google and Yahoo!, who have had to rapidly make changes as the economy changes under their feet. Meanwhile, as business conditions deteriorated, the public markets were closed and valuations were decimated.

But before the doom and gloom hit, a good number of Web services pushed and shoved their way out the door in the first half of the year, and look to be here for at least the near term. Even as the second half of the year saw a drying up in new services and very little innovation, as we start to look toward 2009, there are new brands that many of us know were but a glimpse in an engineer's eye when 2007 finished and 2008 took over. And while no list is complete, here are some of the best that can claim 2008 as their birth date. I expect this will miss quite a few, so please make sure to nominate your favorites and tell me why I'm wrong!

1) Summize (Twitter Search)

Search is still king, and real-time search is having a huge impact on the way people find news, share ideas, and see trends. Summize built its business around being a search engine for Twitter, and soon became more stable, and theoretically, more useful, than Twitter itself. The Twitter team, in desperate need for more engineering help, acquired the company and absorbed into the microblogging service.

Expected Exit: Acquired - Already Complete

Twitter's acquisition of Summize was a smart move, considering how real-time search is becoming critical in times of breaking news. Many, including myself, are turning to Twitter search instead of Google, Yahoo! and the traditional news wires to hear reports from people on the ground, unfiltered.

2) Socialmedian

While many different sites have conquered the online activities aggregation space, Socialmedian went about the process in a different way than all the others, letting people not only follow friends and pipe in their shared content from a wide variety of 3rd party sites, but organized it in terms of categories. The category feature was so successful, CEO Jason Goldberg has been able to showcase specific events, including the 2008 election, and the financial crisis, and make Socialmedian a go to site to interact with "newsmakers". The site, starting from scratch in the Spring, has risen up to challenge FriendFeed, Digg and other sites for social news - and continues to grow at a rapid clip.

Expected Exit: Acquisition by First Quarter of 2009

With Goldberg and team having raised so little capital to get the product off the ground, and having kept costs very low, with the development team in India, the bootstrapped Socialmedian looks to be a ripe target for an acquisition, in my opinion. Without strong revenues and the public markets the way they are, Socialmedian would be smart to find a strong content or media partner, to join forces and enable the service to continue its growth.

3) BackType

Technorati and Google Blog Search, as well as many other directories and search engines have typically focused on the blog as the central nervous system for their offering. But as many would agree, it is the comments and conversation, no matter where they are, that have real meaning to blog authors and participants. While everyone was busy trying to see who could land on the Techmeme leaderboard or break new ceilings in Technorati Authority, BackType debuted a site that tracks comments by individual, lets you follow individual commenters across a wide variety of sites, be alerted when comments with keywords take place, and see charts that display keywords' momentum.

Expected Exit: Acquisition in Second Half of 2009

The BackType founders are working together on their second startup, having abandoned the first when it didn't gain traction. While BackType doesn't yet have an amazing market presence, they have forged a unique foothold that so far looks unchallenged. With any luck, I would expect the BackType team to deliver more enterprise-capable brand and identity management tools that would enable the service to gain revenue and exposure, letting the service to remain independent through the majority of 2009 before finding a place within WordPress, Six Apart, Google or Twitter.

4) TweetDeck

TweetDeck isn't a Web service, but this Adobe AIR application introduced new functions to Twitter usage that changed the game in terms of how people use the service. By introducing a multi-columned app that features groups, integrated search, direct messaging, and replies functionality, many are swearing by TweetDeck, and it looks like it may soon overtake Twhirl as the most popular Twitter application. Busy Twitter addicts including Guy Kawasaki swear by it.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009

Iain Dodsworth is continuing to upgrade the product, and it's widely rumored he may soon integrate multi-account support, as well as integration with additional services, outside of Twitter. If he can get enough people to donate or pay for the application, there's no question he could make a full-time living from the resulting revenue. The question is, will people who expect a free service to have 100% uptime spring for the app that gets them there?

5) Strands

While FriendFeed, Profilactic and others were first out the gate in 2007 with their lifestreaming and social activity aggregation tools, Strands has worked on their own social news and lifestreaming site, in beta, since mid year. Focusing on delivering a clean interface for their Web, mobile and iPhone application versions, and keeping a strong emphasis on tracking musical preferences, Strands has developed a loyal following who find the site less noisy than some services and cleaner than others. Strands, instead of marketing to early adopters, like me, has given a great deal of focus to converting the more mainstream user, and acting as an evangelist for other third party applications, ranging from Pandora to Twitter.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009.

Strands' history both bodes well and plays against them. Their VC funds offer them a strong balance sheet, but may also force the company's investors to seek a return that would be unavailable, given current market conditions. The company will need to find a better way to differentiate against FriendFeed and others, and hope that appealing to mainstream America works.

6) ReadBurner

A service that would tabulate the most frequently shared items from Google Reader was high on my list of sought-after sites in 2007. The catch is that I always thought Google would do it themselves. When ReadBurner debuted in January, it was a delight, and the simplicity of the service bred many clones, including RSSmeme. Later in 2008, its older cousin, Feedheads, broke out of the Facebook garden and entered the general Web. ReadBurner, and others like it, serve as having the potential to unseat less-democratic popular news hierarchies, such as Digg, assuming they execute well. As an advisor to the service, I'd like to say they are on the right track, or rate the service higher on this list, but development has been slow of late, and needs to get going again.

* Not Listing an Expected Exit Due to Assumed Bias *

7) Feedly

Like many other smaller services this year, especially those around the Google Reader and Twitter ecosystems, Feedly takes an existing popular product and makes it better - giving a news magazine feel to what previously had been a standard RSS reader. Feedly launched as a Firefox plugin in the middle of the year, highlighting recommended articles from friends, popular feeds, and integrating with Google Reader, so when you made changes to your Feedly, those changes tracked back to Reader.

Expected Exit: None

Feedly's founder recently noted his excitement over earning the service's first dollar, after a user Tweeted that she'd gotten distracted by an ad within Feedly and clicked through. Given most other RSS based apps haven't found any revenue yet, a single dollar is a lot more than zero, but Feedly doesn't look like it has any kind of mass that would push it to the mainstream, let alone turning into a viable business. For now, it's just an interesting twist on data consumption. The site will only go away if its developers get bored of it.

8) Gnip

With sites like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Delicious and others getting pounded all day by third party services tapping into their API and sucking down their users' updates, Gnip recognized these external sites might soon see backlash from the data sources, as too much of their own infrastructure was being used to power other programs. In light of Twitter's up and down summer, Gnip debuted to act as the middleman, essentially making data portability easier, reducing one-offs between services.

Expected Exit: Acquisiton by end of 2009

It's hard in life to be the middleman, trying to play equal with every service. Should Gnip really start to become the Akamai of data portability, it's likely that one of the biggest data producers would want to snap up the service for themselves, and either limit competitors' access to it, or start charging fees. In a world when VC money is hard to come by, Gnip would be smart to take the offer.

9) Toluu

You'll note two major themes regarding hot services in 2008: RSS and friends. Finding out what your friends were reading and sharing were key facets of most of the new products that gained my attention this year. Toluu, developed by Caleb Elston, offers a site where you can upload the OPML file of feeds you read, mark your favorites, and see how compatible you are with other users of the site, helping find new feeds, and new people. Over time, the service enabled me to see new blogs my friends were subscribing to, and you could even notify Twitter if you had added a new blog to your reading list.

Expected Exit: None

Toluu is a geeky hobby for Caleb. He's recently also gotten behind Kallow.com, a gift recommendation service. Toluu hasn't been monetized in any way, and is unlikely to develop into an acquisition target, unless another service wants to use his recommendation engine.

10) SocialToo

Twitter and Facebook have become such a part of the blogging ecosystem, that new services have sprung up to make it more useful and intuitive. Among them is fellow louisgray.com author Jesse Stay's SocialToo. The service looks to act as a bridge between multiple social networks, including Twitter, Identica and Facebook, letting you automatically follow those users who follow you, offering a black list of people you never want to follow you, setting up an automatic message to those who choose to follow your account, and recently, the addition of surveys that can be distributed by Twitter and tabulated on the site, much like SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy.

Expected Exit: Remaining Independent through end of 2009.

SocialToo contains some advertising, and if I were to guess, it may offer premium features, as the survey functionality could be improved a great deal, possibly even going head to head with sites like SurveyMonkey. While Jesse is unlikely to get rich off SocialToo, it's smart in that it's not tied just to one service (Twitter), but has the flexibility to add on new networks as they rise in prominence.

Also on the list but outside of the Top 10:
12seconds.tv, BlogRize, Identica, LinkRiver, OneSpot, PeopleBrowsr, Plurk, Rejaw, RSSmeme, Shyftr, Yokway

Survey Says: Twitter is About Relationships

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

In a post by Guy Kawasaki recently, he suggested that most Twitter users wanted more followers, and if they weren't, they were lying.  The concept is simple - the more people following you, the more people you have in your network, and the more powerful Twitter becomes for each individual.  I wanted to dive deeper into this so I posted a SocialSurvey on SocialToo.com (my startup), asking why users use Twitter, forcing them to pick just one reason.  The results were interesting.  Here's what I found.  

In answer to the question, "Why do you use Twitter?"

• 5 said they use it to communicate with friends
• 19 said they use it as a networking tool
• 2 said they use it to know what others are doing
• 1 said he/she was addicted (Admittance is the first step, isn't it?)
• 4 said it was part of their job
• 11 said it was to know what others are saying
• 3 use it as a journal
• 4 use it to post announcements
• Only 1 uses it primarily to promote their brand

So, out of a sample of 50 people, over half of them use it either to network (aka get to know new people), or to know what others are saying.  Based on this survey, most people are on Twitter to follow or be followed.  They're in it to meet people.  It's about the relationships and building relationships between people.  Amazingly, business was not near the top of people's minds when it comes to Twitter.

Per the survey, only 1 person uses Twitter to promote their brand as their primary means of being on Twitter.  To me this presents an opportunity.  If such a minority are on Twitter focusing on promoting brands, and there are so many linked relationships, why not figure out how to utilize the existing relationships on Twitter to promote your brand?  Why not be one of the first doing this?

Guy Kawasaki is a genius at this - with his AllTop brand he is getting those fans of AllTop to be the promoters to their own followers.  The old saying goes, "Give a man a fish, feed him for a day", "Teach a man to fish, feed him for a lifetime", but "Teach a man to teach others how to fish, and you'll feed a multitude".  Guy is doing exactly that, by enabling others to do the spreading of the word for him - therefore they are going to be more than willing to take one relationship (them and Guy or them and AllTop), and introduce it to the other relationships they have already established in a respectful way.  Guy isn't forcing this on anyone.  Instead, he's enabling his followers to find ways to present it to their own network of friends.  He's even built out an e-mail list around this cause.

As a business, you have a unique opportunity with Twitter.  There are so many relationships out there - your task is to now figure out how you can get your brand between those relationships.  Social media is about connections - it's about the relationships, no longer just the individuals, and your brand needs to be on the link between those individuals to have the most powerful influence.

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.

Not Everyone Reads Your Tweets, and That's Okay!

By Jesse Stay of Stay N' Alive (Twitter/FriendFeed)

As founder of SocialToo, a startup that has a Twitter auto-follow feature, I've heard my share of comments on why automatically following those that follow you on Twitter or elsewhere is or isn't a bad thing. Some people feel it is less genuine if you use a script to follow those that follow you, while others think that as your network grows it is hard to manually pick and choose those that should or shouldn't be followed.

A script makes this easier, and while it has the potential to introduce more spammers into those you follow, services like my own SocialToo.com provide tools to prevent that through manual and intelligent blacklisting of individuals you don't want it to follow. The "genuine" relationship issue is a concern that makes sense though, and it begs the question on whether following absolutely everyone can actually reduce the strength of relationships you have with those you follow. I think with that issue people are missing the point.

It's About Relationships

Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, and other networks similar are all about relationships. Building and fortifying those relationships are important on each of the networks you belong to. Relationships are what define an individual. I remember working at a small Genealogy startup, OneGreatFamily.com, where we were able to identify exactly who an individual was by their relationship to those around them. If we could identify their grandparents, parents, children, spouse, and other aspects of those around the individual, we could then match those in the network with similar relationships and guarantee with near certainty that 2 individuals in the database were indeed the same individual.

Therefore it's important to be able to identify yourself by those you connect with to further establish your identity on the internet. In this case we're doing it by those you associate with in different ways. For the most part, when people "follow" you on one of these networks, they are showing interest in you. For one reason or another, they came across your profile and have established some perception of who you are. They are interested in you.

Therefore, when they put forth that effort to follow you, the polite thing would be to pay back the courtesy and show interest back to them. I think the issue we're all running into here is that as our networks grow, it becomes more and more difficult to pay attention to each and every individual. Therefore, does it really help solidify that relationship if you can't pay attention to everything they post?

You can have the best of both worlds!

I find the more new followers I get, and the harder it gets to manage each and every potential relationship. I only have 2,000 followers - imagine if you are Robert Scoble or Guy Kawasaki with 20,000+ followers! Therefore, for me, automation has become necessary where possible. The secret which I have come to realize is that it's okay to miss things your friends say! I'd venture to say that every person has at least 1,000 real-life friends, so it's a very real possibility this will become necessary for you as well.

Here's the thing though - most of my friends don't even realize that I can't pay attention to everything they say because I've developed a way to ensure the important posts come to my attention. Therefore, if I can be sure I can catch the things they want me to hear, and I get the opportunity to talk back to them when that happens, I now have the best of both worlds. I am following them, and I'm able to pay attention to what they want me to hear as well. That doesn't necessarily mean I pay attention to every word they say. It's okay to skim, or even miss posts!

Here's how you can do it:

It's taken me a couple years to master this technique, and I'm constantly discovering new ways to manage it better. It's important you find a way that works best for you, but here are some sure tools to allow you to follow those that follow you, and get the information that both they, and you need to obtain to ensure the best relationship between all those you follow:

• TweetDeck - TweetDeck is an essential for any Twitterer. I only recently started embracing this 100%, but boy am I glad I did! TweetDeck has enabled me to create a "favorites" group that ensures the most important people I follow I can track every single one of their Tweets from. This now becomes the equivalent to only following those people who are most important to you. Through TweetDeck you not only are enabled to follow everyone that follows you (through services like SocialToo.com), but also track those people that are most important to you at the same time.
• Twitter Search - Also available in TweetDeck (You can create custom windows that only return Tweets that match terms you specify. Not only that, but you can filter by keyword amongst your friends and even exclude terms!), Twitter Search is essential for finding the information, especially amongst your friends, that you need to hear about. You can search for a particular user's name, your own brand, your competitors, particular interests you have, and more, and all results get returned with a link to add to your RSS Reader. This means that every new Tweet with that term in it gets sent as a new item in your RSS Reader.
• TwitScoop - TweetDeck also integrates Twitter Search with TwitScoop, which will give you the top trending topics at a given time, letting you know the hot topics before even the news hears about them. TwitScoop's website will then show you all the people talking about that subject at a given time. Today I was reminded of Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on TV because people on the East Coast were talking about it before it came on in my area.
• RSS - Use RSS religiously. With TweetDeck this becomes much less necessary, but through both Twitter Search and FriendFeed, all your results come back with an RSS link. Be sure to add the searches you must not miss out on to your RSS Reader and you won't miss anything.
• FriendFeed IM - I use this to have replies to my posts on FriendFeed delivered straight to me, as they happen. This keeps me from having to keep checking back on FriendFeed for new replies. I can even reply back right in my IM window! See our previous article on this.
• FriendFeed Lists - FriendFeed has provided a "group" functionality, which they call Lists, similar to what TweetDeck provides for Twitter enabling you to track and organize the individuals you follow on FriendFeed. Each list is available real-time, so you can have a window open, and refer back to that list regularly. Again, skimming is okay - if you have your search and alerts set up you won't miss anything through this method.
• Treat @replies and DMs religiously! - This is important. If someone really wants to get in touch with you they will send you a message, either publicly or privately. It's important to note that in Twitter, you can't privately send a message to anyone if they aren't following you back. This is why it is so important to try and follow those that follow you - it gives your followers just one more way to get in touch with you, and gives you one more way you can talk with your followers. Pay attention regularly to those that reply to you or direct message you. I try to make it a habit to reply to each one, whether it be a short, "can you e-mail me?" statement, or a more personal message. This is your closest opportunity to one-on-one communication on these networks, so take advantage of it.

In the end, tracking all those that follow you is simply a matter of organization. Automation is necessary for this, and there will constantly be new tools to enable this. While it's important to not be offended if people miss your posts, messages, or Tweets, it's also equally important to do everything you can to catch those messages that people want you to hear. In the end, it's okay if you miss a Tweet or two of those you follow. It's also all about hearing the things people want you to hear.

(Jesse Stay is CEO and Chief Architect ofSocialToo.com, a startup that enables relationship management for those you follow on the Social Web)

Read more by Jesse Stay at Stay N' Alive.