Tech Folks to Follow on Twitter
By Harry McCracken | Monday, August 17, 2009 at 9:24 am
TechRepublic Editor-in-Chief Jason Hiner has published a nice hand-picked list of one hundred tech-related folks who are worth following on Twitter. (Yes, it includes me, but that’s but a minor lapse–and it still leaves ninety-nine worthy candidates.)
Jason points out that Twitter needs a way to follow a group of people with one click–an equivalent to what OPML provides for RSS feeds. (If Twitter doesn’t feel like offering this feature itself, a third-party could presumably do so.) His list is also a reminder that the world could use a definitive directory of Twitterfolk who are worth your time in various major categories. WeFollow is useful, but like too many guides to Twitter users, it sort of devolves into an index of people with large numbers of followers. I know people with a couple of hundred followers who are good reads, and there are multiple people and organizations who prove that having hundreds of thousands of followers is not necessarily a sign of quality…
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August 17th, 2009 at 10:14 am
For all the industry and technology insight that can be distilled into 140 characters? I’ll stay with just following people via their websites and other more thoughtful methods.
Every time I hear someone on their podcast or website pimping their twitter account, it dings their integrity just a bit. Of course, the self-appointed digerati have become just as bad as every other moron out there in doing that.
Even people you might think would be interesting aren’t worth following on a service like Twitter, because the limitations re-enforce a stream of trite and inane updates rather than less frequent thought-out contributions.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:30 am
To follow up my above statement with examples, I chose two names randomly from that list (that seems entirely comprised of the typical self-appointed-digerati-circle-jerk-navel-gazing names) to see what their content on Twitter was.
One was just an endless stream of links (much of it simply links to content being created on the website — which is what RSS is for) and the other had such insightful contributions like “Off to watch my SF Giants play the Mets at Shea Stadium. It’s so hot out! I miss freezing my backside off at AT&T Park.”
Yes, totally deserving of being followed! I completely care that you’re going to watch a ball game! WOW!
Another of the top 100 said something like “have a good sunday!”.
And yet another pointed out that “District 9 is District 6 upside down!”.
Seriously? This is the best that Twitter has to offer? These people should be ashamed. Especially since so many of them pimp their twitters out to tens of thousands of people and then their insightful updates are about movie titles and having a good day and going to the ball park?!
Don’t get me wrong, I respect and admire a lot of these people. But people you like aren’t incapable of doing absolutely stupid things. Like spitting out random crap to the entire world of “followers” that should probably best be kept to your closest friends and family.
Actually, I doubt even your friends and family would care about most of the inane crap I’m seeing posted.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Surely I was #101 on the list. 😛