I really don't know what to make of Twitter, in many cases!

I have written a number of posts now about the peculiarities of Twitter that sometimes make me wonder if Twitter deserves all the credit it is receiving.

Now, I have to admit that Twitter has obviously, with 100 million users, reached a point where it's ingrained in our collective online experience. These peculiarities will not adversely affect its popularity or importance. But, if I can bring some attention to these things that bother me a bit, perhaps I can make a minor contribution to improving the experience for people.

Or at least I might feel better getting some of these things off my chest.

This tweeter has 3 lousy tweets, yet 14,000 followers. There is no chance 14,000 people are interested in what this person has to say. The fact that he follows 14,000 people leads me to believe he's part of the auto-follow community - tweeters who follow auto-followers to build their follower list. They share nothing and gain nothing. They only build their follower list to feel good about themselves.

To me it's an obvious abuse of the application's main feature.

TAKEAWAY FOR YOU:

1. ONLY FOLLOW TWEETERS THAT INTEREST YOU.
2. There's no point in growing a list of auto-followers, because they're not interested in you, so they won't read anything you have to say anyway.
3. Say something interesting!
4. Some people will say that maximizing your following is manageable by creating "lists" of followers and people you follow. OK, but you still need to say something interesting (see #3)!