Comments on: I Disagree and You Should Too

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:34:33 +0000

I find it all a bit difficult to decipher. I follow people who follow me or others I find interesting. All of the conversations can be interesting at times, but exhausting, as well. The personal interactions aren’t as important to me, in the sense that I put a lot of energy into my personal relationships and so, I try not to go out intentionally and meet new people I have to keep up with.

But if folks read my stuff or I find them generally interesting, it’s cool to have them there as someone to chat with randomly or to share knowledge with on the fly.

I’m pretty opposed to the whole “friend everyone” theory of the social web, but only because it can become a quick blurry line between “look at all of these people who find me interesting” to “let me have a contest to see how many I an add.”

I tend to keep my opinion close to the vest in most situations, because I find online it can be hard to communicate with people who don’t know me, the same way I would in “real life.”

By: Andrew Careaga

Andrew Careaga — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:12:43 +0000

I follow a lot of different streams on Twitter and Facebook. Twitter connects me with people I work with (both in comms and IT, and also a couple of profs), other comms/PR/marketing folks in higher ed (like you), the broader comms/PR/marketing community, academia, general media, music media, musicians/bands (many struggling to gain a following; I follow out of sympathy as one who used to be in such a band, before the days of social media); some theologians and so-called “emerging” church/christians who blog and lead the emerging movement; and the miscellaneous odd tweeter. There’s the crossover w/ Facebook (the infamous Venn diagram Tim shared recently) but Facebook is becoming more and more the “friends and family” domain of old high school and college friends.

So I guess I agree with you and Tim and Joel and micala.

I’m not afraid to disagree, though, and have done so — usually more on blogs than in tweets. People on Twitter sometimes are pretty thin-skinned. I think everybody should work for a small daily newspaper for at least year in order to grow a tough hide.

By: insidetimshead

insidetimshead — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:06:09 +0000

Amen! (Oh, wait, am I supposed to disagree?) For me, it’s *always* quality over quantity. I follow 150+ and there’s already a lot of noise. Followed a college president who first followed me, which seemed cool until he gave us a blow-by-blow every couple of minutes while waiting for a plane to take off. Every time he was in a plane! Oy. I waved goodbye.

I feel similarly about (as I said before) Tweeps who only RT or people whose raison d’etre seems to be “hey! look at me! I’m an expert!” Being from simple and rustic Upstate, I ultimately come down to the bar test: Am I following anyone I wouldn’t want to just have a beer and chat with (even if we don’t agree on everything)? The answer is no. I value social, helpful and interesting.