Hi, As the developer of Twollo here are my thoughts. *Auto un-follow:* I have not implemented it, I am unlikely too - it has lost me users for not doing it. I developed Twollo to help you find people to follow. I have *a lot* of requests to develop a feature that will auto-un-follow after X days of following a person, this feature is only ever used to cycle Twitter accounts and grow the follower base.
I can understand to some extent that the auto-follow process has a false positive rate and that you don't really want to follow them, but that can be solved as a function of my UX. *Auto follow:* I strongly believe that auto follow is a very good feature when used in a responsible way. It can be abused, but there are people that want to engage with their users over and above a tweet. If you are engaging with your users, using a simple search is a good way to talk to people talking about you, but there is a very positive feeling that people get when a "company/twitter" follows them because it feels like that company is listening to them in an on going basis. It is not the auto-follow which is the bad thing, it is the use of it (I am not trying to use the "its not guns that kill people" argument) on the back of knowing that there is a good chance of people being nice and following you back and then cycling the accounts of people who don't - it is the unfollow which is the bad part. There will be quite a large back lash from users, if you can only follow 200 people a day (even discounting the argument that reciprocated follows are free). I personally don't think reciprocated follows should be free, every follow should be considered in complete isolation. *Some Thoughts:* The reason why people cycle their accounts followers is to (1) get past the 2000 follow limit and (2) to look like they are authoritative on their subjects, you are more likely to follow someone who has a lot of followers already (3) to have a large audience to push their wares through. Rate limit the un-follow api request, make it a value less than the auto follow limit so if I can auto follow 1000 people per day, I can only un-follow 200, or group 1000 the follow limit and an the unfollow limit together. The first will stop (or at least vastly slow down) people rinsing their accounts because they have to control their growth. I think people need to get rid of the "etiquette" of reciprocating a follow if you don't really have in interest in people, especially if you reach the point where you. The only time that I can see this being of value is if you are a company engaging with your customer base, but even then there aren't that many companies with such a large base. It is very hard to see the value of following more than say 2000 users without having decent filters in place to target interesting tweets. Twitter could white list accounts to allow them to follow more people than the current limit, you wonder if it could even be charged for. I would also like to see Twitter pushing the last tweet and profile text out in the emails that people get when someone follows you. I do have a question: Where do people think the majority of reciprocated follows come from? I personally think that it is from the emails Twitter send out. If you think about it, from a marketers point of view, they are using Twitter as a trusted source to deliver their message directly in users inbox. I wonder if there is a case for not sending the email from users who have followed/auto followed a lot of people in a day, or stopping that functionality altogether for that user. If you think about it the user who is doing the following is unlikely to know the message has not been delivered, they follow a lot of people, it will appear on their stats, they can unfollow as many people as they want it won't help them build their network; Paul. 2009/6/10 Jesse Stay <jesses...@gmail.com> > The summary is > I propose that the follow limits be dependent on whether a user is following > an individual or not. It should only count against me if the user is not > following me already and I try to follow them. :-) > Jesse > > > On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:35 PM, Abraham Williams <4bra...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> Can someone tweet a summery to @abraham? :-P >> Thanks, >> Abraham >> >> >> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 00:28, Jesse Stay <jesses...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Let's discuss the follow limits. I feel, as developer of a tool that >>> allows people to auto-follow, I have a bit of insight into this. While >>> there are many, many legitimate users that auto-follow others, and have good >>> reason to do so, some are using it as a way to game the system, build >>> followers quickly, break the Twitter TOS, and reduce the meaning of follower >>> numbers for many other users just using the service legitimately. I see >>> this daily, amongst a few of my own users, and while, due to our privacy >>> policy I can't share who they are, I do have some suggestions that would >>> make the API follow limits make a little more sense. Maybe you guys can >>> provide more insight. >>> >>> -Currently the follow per day limit is 1,000 follows per user per day. >>> There is no limit on the number of unfollows a user can do per day (that I >>> know of), and it appears as though there is also a limit of around 10% for >>> the number of users a person can follow more than follow them back. The >>> users taking advantage of Twitter have figured this out. So here's what >>> they do: >>> >>> A "gamer"'s typical activity is that they will follow as many people as >>> they can - most up to the 1,000 limit they're allowed per day, until they >>> hit the ratio of 10%. The higher the follower base they gain, the longer >>> they're able to do this. They then hope a good portion of those 1,000 >>> people follow back. Those that don't use tools like mine (which weren't >>> intended to be used this way) to unfollow everyone who is not following them >>> back. This is often much greater than 1,000 for the users that are really >>> good at it. The process then starts over. They'll use tools like >>> Hummingbird (Google it) and Twollo to find people and automatically go out >>> and follow them. This is why I refuse to create auto-follow filters to find >>> new people on my service. It's way too spammy if you ask me. >>> >>> Why do they do this? 2 reasons: 1, "supposedly" having more followers >>> means more visits and clicks in whatever you're trying to promote. (I don't >>> believe this) and 2, many of these people also have auto-DM set up to send >>> links and messages to each person that follows them back. Back when I >>> offered this service (we disabled it for this exact reason) people told me >>> they were seeing significant clicks on the links they would send to people >>> via DM after they followed them. Therefore, more follows==more clicks==more >>> revenue. I don't blame them if that's what they're really seeing. >>> >>> So for this reason I think having limits in place is a *good* thing. I >>> don't think the follow limit is in place due to traffic reasons, since there >>> are many more calls that cause more traffic on the API and there is no limit >>> to unfollows, so I really think Twitter is doing this for the purpose of >>> reducing spam and "gaming" of Twitter. This is a good thing. >>> >>> However, I think Twitter may be approaching the limits the wrong way. >>> Here's what I think would be more effective, and beneficial for the >>> legitimate users that want to follow back and at the same time not allow >>> those who want to game the system to use the methods I described. Twitter >>> needs to impose limits based on whether the individual is following the user >>> back or not. >>> >>> For instance, if I follow @dacort and he is following me back, that >>> shouldn't count against me as a hit against my follow limit. However, if I >>> try to follow @dacort and he is not following me back, it should count >>> against me as a hit against my limit. With this, users could easily >>> auto-follow back if they choose to, and it would still be difficult for the >>> users trying to game the system and spam Twitter. In fact, you could >>> significantly *reduce* the limit this way and make it virtually impossible >>> for these users to use Twitter in that manner. If you were to look at the >>> relationship between the users when counting against limits, you could >>> probably reduce the follow/day limit all the way to around 200 per day >>> instead of 1,000 per day. I don't see any reason for the 10% >>> follow/follower ratio with a low limit such as that. >>> >>> However, as stands, the more followers you get, if you are using Twitter >>> legitimately, you have no way to extend the courtesy back if you choose to >>> do so, since after a certain point you will be following many more than >>> 1,000 users per day. And even if you aren't, it will take an extremely long >>> time for many individuals to finally catch up to follow those following them >>> if they want to at 1,000 follows per day. >>> >>> I know there are some that disagree with the auto-follow concept. >>> However, I also know most of you also want Twitter to be an open >>> environment where people can choose to use it as they please. Doug, Alex, >>> etc. I'd love it if you guys could at least consider changing the follow >>> limits as I mentioned. The current limits are doing nothing to prevent the >>> spammers - my suggestions I believe will, and will keep it an open >>> environment for the rest of us. >>> >>> Sorry for the long discourse - I would really love to hear others >>> thoughts and suggestions. >>> >>> @Jesse >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> Abraham Williams | Community | http://web608.org >> Hacker | http://abrah.am | http://twitter.com/abraham >> Project | http://fireeagle.labs.poseurtech.com >> This email is: [ ] blogable [x] ask first [ ] private. >> Sent from Madison, WI, United States >> > >
