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Maybe I'm missing some secret to twitter or something...but if you think someone is tweeting annoying or useless stuff, couldn't you just unfollow them?

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That's a pretty clunky solution though. Most prolific tweeters tweet both useful and "fluffy" stuff. I'd like to be able to filter out the fluff and still see the quality tweets. And still yet for other users (mostly close friends), I like to see the fluffy stuff. So far I feel Facebook has solved this problem fairly well, and Twitter hasn't even begun to address it.

I agree. There's also the social stigma of unfollowing. Most folks wouldn't unfollow a close friend, their boss, or a new client they're trying to woo.

Facebook has done more to alleviate this problem than Twitter with the default newsfeed being an algorithmically curated one (Top News) rather than the full firehose (Most Recent) and their hide functionality. I've always found hiding on Facebook could be more useful. Hiding a single update feels pointless. Hiding everything from a friend is rarely required. All that leaves is hiding an app, assuming their update came from one. That's where content-based filtering tools like http://slipstre.am/ (disclosure: my app) and http://proxlet.com/ excel, even though they're Twitter-only.

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