…or I’ll delete you from my following list!

That’s what some people are getting at, thanks to FriendOrFollow.com.

FriendOrFollow allows you to insert your Twitter username (or anyone else’s for that matter) and it’ll access the readily available ‘following’ and ‘followers’ info on your user. It removes duplicates from both lists, which leaves you with people you follow that don’t follow you, and the people who are following you but you’re not following. My feeling is this:

If you’re not generating good stuff, you won’t get a following. More importantly, though, it’s not just about good stuff, it’s about relevant stuff to the consumer, the follower.

I had a tweetversation (or whatever the geeks are calling it nowadays) with someone yesterday morning, it went as such:

Him: Hmmmmm. Http://friendorfollow.com (friendorfollow.com) is very enlightening. I’m following LOADS of people who don’t reciprocate.

Other guy: @him why do people have to follow you back? I follow lots of people who don’t follow me. Couldn’t bother me less.

Him: @otherguy There’s no ‘have to’. It’s solely about conversational reciprocation. I’m surprised by some of the people in the list.

Me: @him have to agree with @otherguy dude. People that follow to be nice are silly. Follow those you want to follow. Simple.

Him: @me Spot-on, dude. At the same time, Twitter’s about a two-way convo. Not just an eavesdropping tool.

Me: @him Agreed, but it starts with good posts. Silly posts that don’t interest me waste space in my timeline.

Later that evening…

Him: Loads of people I’m following followed me first, but now aren’t, according to http://friendorfollow.com. So I’m unfollowing and refollowing.

Me: @him Lol. You still on that, dude? Do you really keep up with all 622 people you’re following? You’re bound to miss some gems.

Him: @me Nah. Don’t really keep up at all! WAAY too much to follow! But seriously perturbed. Some people DEFINITELY follow me. But DON’T!

I stopped right there.

There was a plan for conversations, but because there’s too much coming in, you can’t keep up because there’s way too much to follow. Bizarre.

Take @BarackObama for instance. He’s currently following 4000 more people than are following him. Since Apr 29th, 2007 (his first tweet) he hasn’t replied to one single person. I can imagine, because if I was following 106150 people (to date) I’d also not wanna have to read through it all, when will he have time to do whatever he does? It’s all about being nice. Making people feel like he gives a rat’s ass about what they have to say, so they reciprocate.

I’d rather have people following me who care what I have to say, rather than feeling obliged to.

Your twitter user, just like an author of a blog, will have a following of people that think you’re interesting, and interested in what you’re saying. That’s why they’re there. I tend to follow people who put up good links, although I personally have a half-and-half approach to random things that I do during the day and finding good shit online. Some people like it, some people don’t.

That’s just how it works. So go ahead and follow me, or your name in my following list is toast!

About a month ago I tweeted about PMSbuddy.com being a site that will save lives. And I still believe this is true, although a recent reminder-mail from them burnt some questions into my mind about who they’re actually out to serve here. Here’s what it said:

Your X will begin having PMS on approximately X.

Now, I don’t know about you, but this seems awfully like it’s women who have created this, trying to get all men to buy them things. Lots of things. Or just advertisers preying on men who don’t know any better.

Lingerie? Vacations? Wine? Flowers? If this was done once a month, we’d all be broke.

I still reckon the most effective is the ‘Leave her alone and don’t make her angry for this week’ approach. It’s served generations well.