Talking tech since 2003

TechCrunch just published an article titled “Should Twitter Remove Its Follower Count” which lead to me to the following question: do you care about your (or someone elses) follower count?  I mean, honestly,  does it bother you if someone has more followers than you do?  I know this all may seem elementary to a certain degree, but, I can almost guarantee people are bothered by this whole follower situation.  Here are my personal feelings on the subject and I’m curious to know yours so leave a comment.

First and foremost, I’m going to come out and say, I believe my followers are important and I am always trying to gain more of them.  Second, it does bother me when my “competitors” (if you will) have a larger following than I do.  However, I believe this makes me more competitive and at the end of day benefits me, not them.  I am always looking to improve my blog, forums, community at large to build the greatest (best) community on the web – not just in the tech field either – I’m talking the best community ever.  Whether I can accomplish that is another story, but it won’t stop me from trying my best.

That being said, I occasionally have to stop myself and say, “Jeff, you’re only 19 – stop and look around at what you have built and done.”  Not that I’m the only 19 year old who has built something like this, but, I believe it’s special to anyone who can accomplish something at this age.  Anyway, back to the followers thing.

There is one thing that truly bothers me more than anything about Twitter followers and that one thing is when someone such as @kevinrose (who is probably a really great guy – not just picking on him) follows only a small fraction (not even 1% of them) of his followers back.  If you want an account just for you and certain people then have a separate account.  I’m not trying to say how people should manage their accounts, but come on what happened to netiquette? I know it isn’t only me who believes it’s common courtesy to follow someone who’s following you on Twitter. For example, my friend @chrispirillo makes an attempt to follow everyone who is following him – he gets it! He gets it better than anyone else I know. Interaction and community building is essential to online success – don’t put yourself in a corner where only privileged people can find you.

I’m done (for now).  Feel free to follow me (@besttechie) and leave me a comment!

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