Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

The whole mentality that newcomers to Twitter are at a disadvantage is batshit crazy. I follow newcomers on Twitter all the time. @hashbreaker has been on Twitter for less than a year, has 5000+ followers (all interesting) and follows ten people. Why? Because people want to hear what Dan Bernstein has to say.

Every other day, I get a Twitter alert on my phone that a bunch of people on Twitter are suddenly following some new account. I click on that account and, lo, it's someone I'm probably interested in following. How did that happen? Because a bunch of people were interested in what that person had to say; I didn't even need to know I was interested because Twitter went out of its way to make that happen.

If you want people to listen to you, join conversations. Or, better yet, build or write things and then link to them in conversations. People will follow you if you add value. I don't believe anyone that anyone cares about looks at Twitter profiles to count followers before making that decision.

Also, bot-favoriting things is extremely annoying. Don't.

I'm sorry you cannot understand this very real issue -- maybe it's because you're biased? People follow Dan Bernstein because he already has a large following in a well recognized field, and even so, 37% of his followers are inactive and 8% are fake [source: statuspeople.com]

Dan Bernstein is by no means the average user. He is also not the type of people Twitter has to retain in order for Twitter to grow into its full potential.

You're talking about gaining followers assuming you are already using Twitter. That's not what this is about. This is about helping newcomers who don't have followers. The average user is NOT retained on Twitter. They leave. The numbers don't lie.

It's full potential for what? I disagree that this is a real issue. I think it's a fake issue, a way of riling people up about a perceived injustice that is totally artificial.

You seem to be arguing that the "average Twitter user" is entitled to followers. Why on earth would that be? The average person doesn't in fact have a lot to say publicly.

I think what he's getting at is the initial difficulty inherent in the process of building a reputation for your personal brand or business when you don't have any preexisting reputation to leverage. There's a tough issue of gaining the momentum to make Twitter a viable marketing channel. When you're just getting started it's difficult to know who to target and where to begin. I see this bot as a relatively harmless way of getting that ball rolling. I agree with you that no one is entitled to followers, but even people with a lot of value to offer can still have a tough time getting those first followers.

Sure, I grant you that the former problem is hard. But the idea that gaming Twitter is a good way to solve it (or that solving it has anything to do with Twitter) is crazy.

Not true. Case in point: Gary McGraw only has 623 followers.

What are you waiting for me to say about that? I see no conflict between my point and Gary McGraw's follower count.

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