Last night there was a huge debate on the number of twitter followers, and that the number of followers matters for any number of reasons. The general dissatisfaction with the top twitter people by followers. You can check out the list here at Twitterholic.com, but in general is really a definitive list, and does the number of followers really matter.

If you follow the epiphany that Robert Scoble had last night, you would be right, it is not really the number of followers, I have followers, unfortunately the majority of people who follow me on a regular basis get their accounts shut down at twitter for one reason or another. If you take a look at the number of legitimate follower requests to those that are shut down, every day I get five new followers, only one will survive the next 24 hours on twitter, the rest will be shut down for one reason or another. In this case, I would rather have legitimate followers than spammers, it is not the number of followers, it is the quality of those followers.

People follow people on social networking systems because they find a value in following them. I am the last person that will blindly follow anyone on any social system because of my own belief in that if I follow him or her, I am giving him or her part of my reputation. In this case, the quality of those followers matter, if I follow you back it is because I know you, I have heard of you, or I like what you have to say. Unfortunately, much of what happens in twitter shows us all just how ordinary our lives are. We whine about starbucks, we whine about something else, we post where we are physically located as if I am going to get off the sofa and come visit you at a bar, we talk about the things we are doing. This is great if you are firing off the large hadron collider, not so great if you are twittering in the line at McDonalds.

I agree with Robert on this one, it is not the number of followers; it never can be the number of followers. What it should be about are people who like you, who you like, who you want to share information with. It should not be a clique, you need to allow new members in and allow for diversity of opinion, yet in the end it will always be about like minds, sharing information that has the ability to change the world, and if not the world, at least the location that you live in.

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