I do believe Twitter's Follow Friday tradition needs to be re-vamped to be relevant. Here's the problem: People are creating too many tweets filled with "cool" people and clogging everyone's streams with chum. That is, people have ceased paying attention to the vast numbers of the Follow Friday Tweets so they're ceasing to be helpful.
The internet ain't no place for the innocent. It's the wild west around these parts, with infrastructure still being built and social feedback loops yet to fully developed. There is little policing, few laws. At times, it can feel like an ominous town, with bad guys sizing you up from under their ten-gallon hat--just waiting for a moment of weakness.
I got this comment from my post on Twitter from famed blogger Doc Weasel [language and link warning: he likes using bad words and images might not be safe for work]:
Many of you still don't see the point of Twitter. This is why I Twitter: Imagine you could gather 200 of the smartest people in a room and they had access to areas of expertise you had no time or hope of gathering. Those people would sift through information and bring up the best stuff for you to know so you don't have to do the grunt work. You don't even have to use Google.
Your avatar on Twitter and your picture on Facebook matter. People make judgments based on the image they see. Here are some common weird things people do:
Some of you people still don't think Twitter is useful. You're wrong. I'll write a post regarding the purpose of Twitter later. This post is for those using Twitter and wondering how to organically grow their influence. Here's five ways to do it:
Twitter rocks. I love Twitter and I'm not afraid to say it. Twitter is to me today, what blogging was me a couple years ago. It's newsy, helpful, fills a need and it's the future.