I've been on Twitter for a year now, and I limit who I follow simply because of time and availability constraints.
I have several online application messages feeding to my cell phone and I've gotten tired of hearing my recharging phone beep or vibrate in the middle of the night because a night-owl decides to pose their perplexing questions or share their interesting insights.
Shel Israel had a great post about his Twitter Follow Policy which is a great resource for everyone trying to maintain some semblance of order in wild wild west that is twitter.
When I first read Shel's piece, I was on board.
But, this weekend, I encountered a glitch.
What do you do when someone you are following asks a question, you have the answer, but they are not following you?
How do you ensure they get your message?
Someone I am following asked for guidance on what software product to use for a specific application. I knew right away, as soon as I got the tweet on my cell. But I could not pass that information on to him because while I am following him, he is not following me. And the website identified in his profile wasn't any help in getting the message to him.
So, I posted my response to his question on twitter with the hope that through the magic of the internet, he may find it.
Which brings me back around to Robert Scoble's post on the secret to Twitter: it's about how many people you are listening to, not how many people are listening to you.
But where do you (and should you) draw the line? Shawn Kirsch looks at both sides of the continuum with his post Hey Jason, When You Reach #1, Then What?
All this leads to a bigger question of purpose. Why are you on twitter?
