As for the one holdout, last week I got a very nice email from Maria Popova explaining how she only uses Twitter as a link/RSS reader; my Twitter account just has too much non-link content in it for it to be really useful for her, but she does pop in to the Twitter site from time to time to see what I’m writing about. Which, I think, is a very reasonable and well-reasoned response.

I’ve actually had to start reprioritizing my Twitter feed similarly. Twitter people whom I personally like and wish to show my support to are different from Twitter *feeds* that I enjoy and can make good use of. The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne, for instance, I was delighted to follow on Twitter, but after a while, I had to knock him out. A bunch of Digital Humanities people cross-talk and retweet each other too much — it just contributes noise to the signal. Some of Robin’s coworkers at Twitter, too, have the same probem.

And for me, unlike Maria, I actually DON’T like it when a Twitter account is just an RSS or Google Reader feed of another name. (Especially when it’s just duplicating their online content.) The presence of a person behind the broadcast, a voice that can speak to many contexts, has more value to me within Twitter than the data itself. But every tool has a different function for a different reader.

And then there was one.

As I said today on Twitter, you’ve got to punch your weight. Date people in your league. Or something.

Now the transitive property thing — there’s actually something to it. Remember when Friendster first launched, and your network view only extended out to friends-of-friends? I think that was really powerful. That’s one of the things I like about the new notification/recommendation system Twitter’s rolling out. But in this case, it clearly had to be hand-curated too.

And if he does follow you, Tim, without also following me, a little part of me might die.