No sooner do I write a post castigating two of the biggest blowhards in social media when I get a present dropped in my lap in the form of an idiotic post from the internet’s top idiot, Robert Scoble.
To refresh (in case going back to yesterday is too much for some of you!), here’s what I wrote on this very topic yesterday.
That’s what Web 2.0 is as of 2008, and what it’s likely to be in 2009. The so-called “thought leaders” who don’t allow actual thought unless it’s in lockstep with theirs, and the mindless drones who follow them in the hopes that riding those coattails long enough will get them the fame they so desire. Maybe, with some luck, that shell will be cracked and original thinkers will emerge from this cesspool of unoriginal milquetoast garbage, but I think true thinkers are just going to avoid the space entirely so as not to have to be stifled by the Laportes and Scobles of the world.
Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, dared to insinuate that Twitter should allow searches based on authority, and according to Lemur, a reasonable measure of authority would be follower count.
What we need is search by authority in Twitter Search. Technorati had nailed it years ago by allowing searches filtered by number of links the blogger had. It would be very easy for Twitter to add an authority line in their search criteria, with the number of followers so that you can search for say, only people who have more than a thousand followers and see what they say. React as fast as you can for criticism from them. It is not a criteria for being smart or not, but clearly a criteria for how fast something can spread.
Seems totally reasonable, right? He even backed it with examples in his post.
Comments about your brand or yourself coming from @techcrunch with 36000 followers are not equal than someone with 100 followers. Most people use Twitter with a few friends, but when someone who has thousands, if not tens of thousands of followers starts to speak, you have to pay attention.
Brands do pay attention and already start understanding the difference. We made the experiment with Ben Metcalfe. I started complaining that Sprint was not offering the new Blackberry (they still don’t, I want a BB Bold with worldwide unlimited data) on Twitter and minutes later a Sprint representative contacted me and offered me VIP customer service. I loved it. For the experiment, @dotben started also complaining about the same issue (and really would love a Bold too, it was true) but nothing happened for Ben. Why not? Sprint understood that I have nearly 10x the number of followers of Ben so I had to be answered immediately, even with my weird last name no one can pronounce. Ben has almost 2000 followers, I think Sprint should actually pay attention too.
So far, everything he’s said is rooted in solid logic, right? So what happens? Scoble tears him a new one for daring to insinuate that follower count should be relative to a person’s authority, because, as you know, everyone can have tons of followers really easy. Forget the fact that most of the “uber Twitterers” are considered authoritative and happen to appear the top of the list (that little fact doesn’t get mentioned in Scoble’s diatribe), you just have to understand one simple facet of Twitter and Twitter relationships.
Here’s why I’ve been saying for the past year that it is far more important who you follow than who follows you: if you follow people just to get followers you’ll end up being overworked, deep in information overload, and superficial to boot.
Remember… This is Robert Scoble writing this, not Vincent Ferrari. That would be this Robert Scoble:
Yep, that same Robert Scoble who’s following over 20,000 people wants you to believe that such a number is unimportant and having too many followers makes you superficial. Of course he isn’t applying that to himself; just you. He hand-selected all 20,000 followers because they were “thought leaders.” We won’t get into his auto-refollow script that Twitter was running for him that automatically followed back every single person who followed him; I’m sure he was only expecting thought leaders to follow him at the time.
The reaction to Le Meur’s post have proven, in a better way than I ever could even hope to, just how devoid of thought people like Scoble really are. Le Meur makes a thoughtful request for a feature he would like to see and backs it up with two examples, and then Scoble comes screaming into the room about how that’s a stupid idea, it would ruin Twitter, and cause world hunger, all the while completely ignoring that the feature could be optional, meaning if you don’t like it, don’t use it! Ahh, but it doesn’t work that way, because in the world of Web 2.0 where people like Scoble are the self-professed keeper of the kingdom, a feature they don’t want is a feature that shouldn’t exist at all.
Because they’re smart.
And they know what’s good for you.
Incidentally, Mike Arrington beats Scoble over the head for his stupidity pretty solidly.