Comments on: How Not To Monetize Twitter

By: bijuterii argint

bijuterii argint — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:32:17 +0000

this will be great for businesses with twitter pages. a new and easy way to market their stuff.

By: ChaCha Fance

ChaCha Fance — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:06:45 +0000

No offense but Robert Scoble needs to sit down some where, seriously. Have a tantrum over something so stupid. As if he doesn’t already get enough attention and publicity & yet I still don’t even know who he is……. SMH

By: Victoria

Victoria — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:28:09 +0000

http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/d0b9422993c966d50141477b206fb7fb?s=80

If people buy power accounts then it’s just like buying links….booo

By: Lisa Barone

Lisa Barone — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:24:46 +0000

Ken and Kim: If I could make my own Suggested Twitter Users, you two would be King and Queen. :)

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:50:19 +0000

as seth says, 1000 true fans is all you need

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 03:40:14 +0000

Nice post, I’m with you. The phrase “the odds are good, but the goods are odd” rings true here: the 1,000 followers that you can actually converse with are more important than XYZ Inc. plumping their following/followers portfolio.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:19:37 +0000

I’m having a hell of a time trying to come up w/ the words to express my thoughts (how DARE you pull me out of my world of numbers!), but calling Scoble out for being a total douchebag is exactly the thing I love about your writing. You crack me up! (I hope this won’t be too disjointed or peppered w/ grammatical errors.)

Users like Scoble, who seem to have an insatiable hunger for more followers, strike me as ego-maniacs who are trying to fill some unseeable void in their lives. I’ve unfollowed uninteresting people just for asking “me” to help them get more followers. If you rarely have anything interesting to say, I’m certainly not going embarrass myself by telling MY followers about you. I have a reputation to uphold. ;-)

Quality trumps quantity (and that’s coming from someone who loves to play w/ numbers!), and I would love Twitter so much more if everyone saw it that way. Not that Scoble could understand that … his philosophy seems to be to point & shout at EVERYTHING in a desperate & constant grab for attention. (I’m also curious to hear how many power users like him actually follow more people than follow them. That just seems odd.) Maybe he needs to get some therapy & get over being picked on in school for being a geek, I dunno. What I do know is there’s not much that’s more annoying to me than someone trying that hard to catch my eye. Except maybe the lemmings that hang on his every word.

I hope that the next iteration of Twitter’s Suggested Users is more personal. Even Twitter Grader uses your bio to find other Suggested Folks to Follow, although that method is far from perfect as well. At least Twitter does preface the list w/ “Maybe you’ve heard of these Twitter users?” Ohhh … perhaps that’s what has Scoble’s panties all in a bunch, maybe he thinks Twitter doesn’t think we’ve heard of him. Trust me Scoble, we have ALLLLL heard of you.

… And just for the record, seeing iJustine as a suggestion feels like an insult to my intelligence, even if the suggestions aren’t personalized. Ick.

By: Michael D

Michael D — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 01:55:08 +0000

I’m leary of anything “suggested” on any site. Just seems to me as another way of saying “we need to show you something to fill this page space”.

By: Ken Jones

Ken Jones — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:25:13 +0000

I totally agree that this random sampling of 50 “Suggested Users” is far from the best way to introduce new users to Twitter. Especially when there seems to be no rhyme or reason behind their selection (and I certainly don’t agree with Scoble’s carefully worded implications that money has changed hands for the dubious privilege of being suggested).
(As an aside: If Scoble really wanted to be on the suggested users list, perhaps he should spend less time trying to draw users over to his discussions on FreindFeed.)
It could be worthwhile for new users to be shown a list of “Most Popular Users” but a far more effective introduction for new users would be to leverage search.twitter.com by having people enter a few terms that they’re interested in so that they can see who else is discussing the same subjects.
For example, if a new users states their interests as cats, kneesocks and Chris Pearson, then the top of the list of their personalized suggestions would more than likely be Lisa.
Someone whose primary interests are bitching about Google, Disneyland and cake decorating would get Graywolf.
And an individual who enters their priorities as me, me , me would be sent in Scoble’s direction.

By: Brent Nau

Brent Nau — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:57:02 +0000

I really believe they are trying to leverage the celebrity aspect to show how cool Twitter is for noobs. I do agree that there are better solutions for suggested users, but the profiles need to be expanded to really match like minded people.