Thinking about the day when the twitterverse will be completely littered with abandoned twitter profiles and dead blogs, abandoned myspace and facebook pages … sort of like the debris in space.

Good points all around.

But if you look at Woot, they’re actually a great example of not being a Twitter sinner – they’ve followed all of my guidelines. They didn’t go out there and just start following people or collecting contacts (following #1). They’re giving legitimate value to the relationship, by giving you real-time updates on their close-out sales (following #2). They started by giving content (their updates) before they started swarming for followers (following #3). The fourth guideline is the important one – be upfront with the type of relationship. You mention that Woot doesn’t talk to you and that’s ok. That’s the kind of relationship you and other people have come to expect. The guideline is simply to be upfront – if you’re just a channel for promotions, and people want to have that kind of relationship with you, lovely. And, by default, Woot follows guideline 5, by not just retweeting everyone else’s content and offering nothing of their own.

Thanks for the feedback, Ed. And the passive snarkiness.

1. Misuse through ignorance, not understanding the customs
2. Discover problogger
3. Become a social media expert
4. Tell people how to/not to use the popular tools

Then if they stick around long enough, they hit:
5. Actually settle into something that works for them despite the rules

I see people and businesses “misusing” things like twitter all the time and it’s working for them just fine. Woot.com doesn’t talk to me, but finding out what they’re selling in real time is awesome.

Though I’m a marketer too, I find myself rebelling against the commercialization of twitter. I”m sure it’ll self regulate, but i don’t want it to turn into myspace. If it gets too bad people will start using identi.ca and other open source systems to create their own microblog networks.

-M

I have been enjoying following other Twitter users in my community and hearing what they have to say about local events and interests. I like the diversity of individuals that I follow. Some, I have things in common with and others are a sharp contrast. It’s that diversity that I feel gives a truer representation of the ”heartbeat” of the thing that binds us, which is the city that we all inhabit together.