Michael N. Dundas

On Slaw blog, there was a post today about some issues a few lawyers had when they ended up following an individual on Twitter. The post ends by effectively asking if people feel they should follow someone who follows them or not. I added my thoughts into the comments of that post, but thought that would be a good topic for a quick entry in my blog as I have pondered that question for a while.  I’ve added a little more detail here as to my criteria than the comment. The process is not cast in stone, rather a general set of guidelines that I typically use to make a decision.

My goal with social media is to connect and meet other interesting people.  As a general rule, I believe that when someone decides to follow you they are indicating they value your opinion and/or want to start some sort of on-line relationship with you. At least for a majority of people, I believe this to be true. Specifically in my areas of interest (security and networking), Twitter has been very valuable for me in building relationships, getting feedback, and keeping abreast of what is happening.  I also feel that the point of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and other social media sites is to connect with others, build relationships and trust.  Accomplishing that requires both parties to give, just like a relationship between two friends.  If it is one sided, what is the point?

That being said, there are those that will use social media for ‘bad’. Bad by my definition in this context, is to attempt to tweet me to death with useless information, send marketing links about products constantly, or use it as an automated tweeting tool where no real person is on the other side.

When someone follows me I typically do the following:

Check their twitter profile

Are others following them?  What is the ratio they have of followers to following?  If not many are following them, then I check how long they have been tweeting.  Maybe they are new.  The ratio of followers to following is a indication to me of how active they are and how interested they are in others.  A low follow rate may indicate they like to say things, but don’t like to hear opinions of others.  Not 100%, but an indicator.

Scan their tweets

I scan their previous tweets.  Are they informative and original or are they all just re-tweets.  Do they appear to be all just trying to sell products? Do they appear to be auto-generated?

Internet presence

Do they have an Internet presence such as a website, blog,  Facebook account,  Linkedin account?  If they have a website does it look legitimate?  Does the website or blog have information that is useful?  Are their opinions?  Is their an ‘about me’ area where they tell the reader about them.  This is extremely important to me.  I like to know who I am building a relationship with.  I don’t need big secrets about them, but a general concept of who you are, what you do, likes dislikes is helpful.  If I am going to read your posts, references to articles, I’d like to know that you are real and have some background and/or experience with the information you post.

General Internet search

I will search Google.  Do they post elsewhere?  Do they have comments and opinions?

Based on the information I find and feedback, I make a decision to follow or not.  This evaluation process is similar for blogs I add to my blog reader.  Again, this is not cast in stone.   There are a few that I follow that do not follow me back and that is fine.  However, for me that is the exception as opposed to the rule.

Do you have a criteria for who you follow on Twitter or what blogs you subscribe to?

A confidential memo leaked from the Associated Press, explains a 3 part plan to control news they produce, to stop websites, blogs, Twitter, and anyone else from ’scraping’ the content and using it without their permission.

While I think they will have a tough fight on their hands and I doubt their plan will be acceptable today, the analysis provided in the confidential memo is interesting. Specifically, I like the analysis of how the news of Michael Jackson’s death propagated and how Wikipedia, Google, and Twitter where the main benefactors of the traffic.

Michael Jackson died suddenly on June 25, and within 30 minutes,
the news absorbed 25 percent of all web traffic. Online news
sites logged an astounding 4.2 million visitors a minute,
according to the delivery network Akamai.

Two of the biggest beneficiaries of that traffic bonanza were
Twitter and Wikipedia, a couple of digital natives that would
have been viewed as very unlikely news competitors even a few
months ago. Indeed, a new pattern of consumption was validated
in the confusing minutes that followed the first reports of
Jacko's death: Users shared; they searched and they clicked
on Wikipedia.

In the course of only a few hours on the first day of the story,
the Michael Jackson page on Wikipedia received 1.8 million
visits.  By Friday, the total reached 5 million visits.

For those with long Internet memories, the new routine of
Twitter-to-Google-to-Wikipedia contrasts sharply with the
behavior of users in August of 1997, when millions loaded
and reloaded bookmarked news sites to get updates on the
death of Princess Diana, another celebrity icon of similar
magnitude.

I have to agree with their behavioural analysis of consumers of news.  I myself saw a tweet on my PDA about the death of Michael Jackson.  Next, I searched Twitter and clicked on the links that made sense to click on.  Twitter is my main source of news.  From Twitter, I can decide what news tweets if any I am interested in.  If I am interested, I can investigate further via other tweets, links and/or Google.

The memo goes on to explain their 3 step approach to regaining control of the news from consumers.  AP did a press release on their “News Registry” to help “protect content” which is one of the steps in the memo.  However, the confidential memo is much more revealing and ‘colourful’ if you are interested.

A quick entry I have been meaning to do for a while now.  It is late and I need to get to bed.  I signed up for Facebook a couple of years ago when it was all the rage.  My wife actually singed up first and then convinced me.  It was really cool at first.  I started hooking up with friends and family.  Soon I was finding people that I hadn’t seen in a long time, friends from University, high school and to my surprise even elementary school.

Lately I find that I am rarely on Facebook.  The only reason I keep my account is that I have people I am friends with that are distant and do not yet appreciate the advantages of Twitter yet, so it is my only constant connection to them.  I started using Twitter more and more.  Rather than update my Facebook status by logging onto Facebook, I just tell Twitter to update it for me with tweets.  One problem with this approach is friends that comment on my wall or comment on my status I often miss as I am not on Facebook and email updates are annoying.  I don’t really use  any applications in Facebook.  I used to use notes but I now just use this blog for that function.  This website is easier for anyone to get to since a Facebook account is not required.  I’ve recently starting just putting links in Facebook to this website in the about me, quotations and other fields.  If you want to know about me, it makes more sense to come here.  I dislike the Facebook user interface.  All in all I am disappointed with Facebook.

I think Facebook would do much better to open up and use Twitter for status, wall updates, and reply to comments.  Facebook took an interesting step this month, allowing you to link your Gmail or OpenId account and use that for login credintials instead of requiring their own authentication.  Maybe integration with Twitter is not far off.