Why is there a maximum follow rate of 2000?

i'm confused, some people like @praguebob are following over 10,000 !

That's because a number of the early-adapters, which are the A-list tech bloggers of Silicon Valley who flogged Twitter itself as a service and are on the Twitter devs' networks, got to avidly add followers. They were not capped. Some of them collected 20,000, 40,000 or more followers by actively following others and blogging constantly about Twitter in the "early days" of the last 2 years. Today, they can keep those ridiculous amounts of followers, and those of us who didn't play the Twitter follower game even if we've been here all this time are punished while they get to go on using Twitter as a broadcast medium -- and newbies coming along are also punished. Unfair, and manipulative.

Inventories should have been capped equally for everybody and the early adapters not rewarded with such largesse of broadcasting scope. In its beta phase. Twitter should have announced, like any MMORPG does quite frankly, that they have to clear inventories and start over with new rules, and that way people would have been forced to gain real friends instead of playing the friend collection game that Scoble and others played.

If you follow this topic on other Twitter threads, you will find the customer service people explaining that they instituted a new rule. You know have to *first* gain 2000 followers, then you can go on following other people beyond 2000, and it works on a formula, add some, add some more. But...the way that the power-users got their huge lists of followers was by...following.

Just to clarify this guy's question, he's upset that he can't follow more than 2,000 people even though there are 1,500 people following him. Basically he's wondering why they don't allow you to mass follow tons of people.

Here's an answer (from me, a guy with 10,000 twitter updates over nearly 3 years)!

Spammers. Chances are if you want to follow more than 2,000 people and you don't have more than 2,000 followers, then you're spamming people. I run an account @staires that hit the limit and it made me realize that I am probably using twollo.com wrong if I am following 2,000 people and only 500 are following me.

Here's a word of advice: don't spam people (don't mass follow random people in an attempt to grab their attention) and you won't hit the limit. If you can't grab people's attention by @replying them or getting them to be intrigued in your content, then they're probably not going to follow you anyway.

I'm sure if over 2,000 people are following you, you'll be able to follow them back, don't worry.

(Edit: Audience building is not an overnight process anyway. If 700 people randomly follow you back, I will tell you from experience that about 10 of them will click on your links. You'll be much happier if you sit back and write good content and work hard and let word of mouth about how awesome you are build your audience. Your follower count means almost nothing.)

No, Brad, that's not true, on the whole. I'm not talking about spam bot. And it's not about "interesting content" for these A-listers -- look at their lists! Scoble sits at his computer all day or takes his laptop with him everybody and as stuff scrolls by, he constantly follows people. Don't forget that the Public List used to be an option on the tabs in front of you, not something to hunt for. That means you could always just go there and watch all the people scroll by and grab some of them every day.

Those people can just look fleetingly interesting, and never even post very much. Or Scoble can recognize their names from some other service, even today, many many people using it are just tekkies and other tekkies' friends, the extended families of Arrington so to speak. So he friends, friends, friends all day long and reaches 20,000 and it snowballs, those people then follow him, and their friends' friends follow him. In order to fill up your list that way, you'd have to consciously go and follow lots of people -- in the normal course of things, you are just going to be able to sit there for hours to hunt and friend people, as your would likely have a normal job, not a tech job that would pay you to do that all day just to show off a start-up.

So Scoble, Arrington, all those people *gamed the system for sure* and are now rewarded with having a *broadcasting system* and not a conversation among equals.

I don't spam people whatsoever. I have more than 1000 followers that have naturally followed me over the course of time, and I follow them, unless I see they are spammers, in which case I unfollow them, and that way I don't get a follower, but that's ok. People like Scoble would never take the time to cull through thousands of "friends" to see if in fact some of them are like "Jenny" who just spammed 20 accounts to me with different numbers about how to have fun in the sun.

Followers are not even about people who click on your links and come to your blog. Some might do that, but what's more important and interesting is the conversation itself in real time about real events, not the endless link farming and having to come back and read a blog. Twitter is not only useful as a blog-touting mechanism to drive people to your blog site.

As per your response to my comment, might I suggest a tool that will prune inactive followers from your list, because I'm going to make a wild guess and say that not all of your 2,000 followers have been active in the last month. MyCleenr seems pretty nice (though you can't batch unfollow a ton of people all at once) http://www.mycleenr.com/

I try not to follow anyone who hasn't been active in more than a month. That should help you out.

No, Brad, you're wrong. It's not a whine because I'm not popular, that's silly. You're constructing preposterous arguments in defense of the indefensible here.

I'm plenty popular, dear. I have a thousand people following me. If I used Twitter, I could have more. I already try to prune the list now and then, and even try to follow everyone who follows me, but I can't make time every day. But I do want to decide myself if I will follow 2000 or 4000 and not sit idly by in a system where David Gregory from old media or Robert Scoble from new media are awarded, ahead of everyone else, massive mindshare because they gamed the system OR given special dispensation from the devs.

I don't notice Mr. Freedom and Endless Friend List Scoble, once banned from FB for trying to port his mammoth lists to Plaxo, who whines constantly about the limits he faces at Facebook (the same as all of us) complaining about this 2000 limit that Twitter now has, that doesn't apply to him. People like this never care about principles and process, but only what they can grab.

How was David Gregory able to rack up 83,191 followers, while he only follows 84? WTF?! How did he get away with that without following 2000 first?! Come on, why is he special? There's no argument for this. NBC Meet the Press gets special dispensation on Twitter? Then, why not, oh, the Pope? If David Gregory is "popular," it's a function not of Twitter, but of the national network broadcast media, which still trumps new media in its scope.

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to use twitter, dear. It's a free system. People can use it as they like, adding lots of strangers enthusiastically because they love noisy conversations or going slow with very narrow topics and only like-minded peers -- as long as they follow the basic TOS which doesn't allow for some kind of mass automated commercial spam selling Viagra or something. AND people get to criticize how it is used/misused without being told they are "whiners because they are not popular". Lame.

It seems to me that this idea that people with pre-existing networks that they got from, oh, being the evangelist of Microsoft (!) somehow entitles them to mindshare with their vacuous ideas broadcast over new media runs counter the spirit of more meaningful content and interactions in new media that I thought new media was supposed to be all about. Guess not! But of course it is all things to all people!

You're also failing to grasp the principles of due process and justice here -- failing utterly. So some customers then, as early adapters with mindshare from Silicon Valley already, or from just gaming the system (which they did shamelessly and openly) now have broadcasting networks, not conversations. So it's no different than the media concentration of a Murdoch or a Clear Channel or a Fox news that lefty geeks always rant about as evil. It's the same kind of concentration based on the medium's makers and the corporations giving them a huge leg up of visibility.

Anyone who came later is subject to the 2000 cap -- except when obviously they aren't, like David Gregory who just joined Twitter this last month on the latest hype cycle. That's wrong!. The system's devs should have said, "Look, we can't sustain all this on our servers so we are ending beta, capping inventories, and letting everyone play by these same rules. Then Scoble and Gregory and everyone else would not be able to keep hijacking new media to exploit it like old media, they'd actually be forced to have a conversation rather than a spamming device to drive traffic to their website with ads for computer servers or soft drinks.

As far as I know, there's no limit to the number of followers anyone can have and that the follow cap of 2000 applies to the number of people we can follow while we have less than 2000 followers ourselves.

So in the case of David Gregory, he's well within the 2000 follow cap since he's only following 80+ people.

http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/107...

There's the definitive policy as you can see from the makers of Twitter. Yes, there is a cap. This idea that it is "different for everybody" seems not quite the case, as it seems to be we're hearing it's 2000.

Read the policy @mdy
http://twitter.zendesk.com/forums/107...

Yes, I realize the literalism of Biz Stone and you saying "you have have as many followers as you want" -- i.e. if you're popular and lucky, you'll get a lot of followers. But...people can't get "as many followers as they want" if they are an ordinary person, even if they are brilliant and merit more followers, because of a built-in rule against them -- they need more followers to be able to follow more people to get more followers.

No, this isn't "the Internet" where there are "no rules" as one smug fellow told me.

This is not the Internet, where there is the rule of old media, which is popularity from broadcats media for David Gregory.

Here's what it says:

"We've also placed limits on the number of people you can follow. The number is different for everyone, and is based on a ratio that changes as the account changes. If you hit a follow limit, you must balance your follower/following ratio in order to follow more people- basically, you can't follow 50,000 people if only 23 people follow you."

But...even if you have 1900 followers and you follow 1900, you cannot go over 2000 to follow more people until your followers catch up in the algorhythm.

What that means is that if you aren't someone leveraging your fame from old media to get a zillion followers, and if you aren't Scoble, as I was saying, who gamed the system early, you cannot follow people to have them reciprocate by following you (a normal, legal function of Twitter).

That means everybody else besides Scobleizer and Dick Gregory and others like them use Twitter like an old-media broadcasting system.

It seems to me that the rules about speed of following, or limits on number of people you can follow per day, are reasonable. But the capping and formula are not, as they unfairly privilege the Twitterati who got their first, or are famous from old media.

(Moving this from a comment to a reply -- didn't realize right away that you had written a follow-up).

I believe the "it's different for everybody" line means it depends on the number of followers that the account has.

I base that statement on this line from a Twitter blogpost by Ev: "We intend to allow you to follow at least as many people as follow you"

My interpretation of that is --- if you have 2050 followers, you can follow up to 2050... the 2000 cap no longer applies to you. Meaning the follow cap is not fixed at 2000; instead, it's a number that can go up depending on the number of followers that the account has.

mdy

1) why are you assuming that a dev's intention of what they'd like to do already pertains? It doesn't for these people nearing 2000 who are filing complaints.

2) It's different for everybody, yes, because people will have different ratios.

3) Some people, like Scoble got to follow at random and as wantonly as they wished because these caps didn't apply when they joined, and they gamed it for all it is worth; that's how you get followers, and they preached this 'give to get' philosophy on their blogs. Therefore they are today at an advantage in reach, and function like broadcasters.

4) You seem to unable to get at the higher philosophical issues here:

o A-listers who gamed the system before caps were put in are now at a mindshare advantage that only goes on multiplying their broadcasting on Twitter
o Newbies who are from big old media get a boost from having name recognition achievements on old media, not having to slog through and friend one by one through genuine conversations, sharing of links, sparring, comparing, etc. They skip the step of interactivity and get mindshare without doing what the common man has to do.

SOOOOO new media -- social media -- is tainted.

Evil has entered our world.

Jesus, what are you talking about?

What do you want? I don't even understand. Some people are followed by a lot of people, if you want to follow a lot of people then get a lot of people to follow you. I don't understand. Nobody gamed anything. Scoble's follow number is probably so high because he used to be followed by 8,000 spam accounts that have probably been deleted since then? And what does it matter that he can follow so many people, when 64,000 people follow him and 400 MORE people follow him EVERY DAY. The guy is popular. If being popular is "cheating" then I guess he's guilty.

P.S. if Scoble is gaming the system, playing it all wrong, then I assume you're complaining because you're losing. But what's winning? What do you want, in the end? (Do you want all the "A-List scum" to get the list of who they follow pruned? Pruned to what? They're already at the 60k people they follow?)

How is it useful to follow more than 2,000 people? Do you not have anything better to do with your time? This is absolutely ridiculous. I follow probably 20 active people and it's more than I can keep up with and Twitter factors more into my life than it should as it stands. How could anyone follow over 200 people and claim it is useful and they maintain relationships with all of them?

You people have a problem. You're warping and twisting this potentially beautiful thing for some other weird sick reason I don't even want to understand. Twitter is not a right. There are no rules on the internet. You're using a service. It's like driving, there are people who tell you how to do it and if you don't do it that way then you don't get to drive. Sorry, you don't get to follow more than 2,000 people.

You actually managed to annoy me with all your bellyaching. Good job.

It's true that following other people is the easiest way to get someone to follow back. But that's not the only way you can reach out to someone; the @reply feature allows you to contact another user even if you have no following/follower relationship.

For example, we don't follow each other. But since you sent a tweet that started with @mdy, it showed up in my Replies tab... which prompted me to visit your profile since I thought you were trying to engage me in conversation. That achieved the same purpose as the "you have a new follower" email notification.

So if I send an @reply to someone who does not follow me and they visit my profile and like what they see enough to follow, then I would have gained a new follower, all without the benefit of being an A-lister or an old media person.

I don't pretend to understand the higher or philosophical implications of the features. I only commented in the first place because I perceived a misinterpretation of the follow cap in David Gregory's case. I am content to leave the philosophical debate to people better equipped to engage in it.

"Yes, I realize the literalism of Biz Stone and you saying "you have have as many followers as you want" -- i.e. if you're popular and lucky, you'll get a lot of followers. But...people can't get "as many followers as they want" if they are an ordinary person, even if they are brilliant and merit more followers, because of a built-in rule against them -- they need more followers to be able to follow more people to get more followers."

I can't believe I didn't catch this.

Hi. If you want to be successful you have to work at it and build an audience. This is like saying, "It's not fair that Jay Leno hosts the tonight show, they didn't give me a chance to be on television."

You know what? Jay Leno did stand up comedy for a long time. He probably wasn't funny at first. He worked hard so that he could appear on television and Johnny Cash liked him, and then, after continuing to work hard, Jay Leno now appears on television and millions of people see him every night and do you know what else? That is HARD WORK, being on television.

You know what else? Being popular on the internet is HARD WORK. You don't just sign up for twitter and then suddenly you're Scoble, a guy who has been doing HARD WORK in the tech industry for nearly TWENTY YEARS.

You'd think that after twenty years of HARD WORK that a guy would have 60,000 followers, right?

Perhaps you should shut up about not being able to follow more than 2,000 people and dedicate yourself to some HARD WORK and maybe in TWENTY YEARS you can have 60,000 followers.

It's common for young geeks to be insolent, nasty, and condescending in these discussions. The more you do it, the more you expose yourself, and don't convince others, and certainly not me.

Um, once again, dear, I'm plenty popular lol. Look at my blog statistics if you will which are pretty good for what I am, which is not a tekkie or some expert on TV. I *am* someone who already "works hard" on the Internet -- and I get exactly about what I deserve, which is...1000 followers in two years on Twitter through the natural course of things. That's fine, and if I wanted more, I'd have gone to get them, but I have a life outside Twitter. It's reasonable for me to request of the devs not to artificially cap my reasonable use of their service which works in a completely normal way, seeing an interesting person and following them, not to force follower reciprocity, about which I don't care, but merely in the course of things if they had an interesting thing to say, had a blog, etc. In fact, I had more followers than people I followed because I hadn't made time to "catch up" and follow Twittiquette, which is generally that you follow those who have bothered to follow you, unless of course they are some creepy violent stalker, or some spammer selling Viagra or something. That's all.

It's not about me, it's about the principles at stake here. Scoble got followers on Twitter NOT because of his 20 years in the tech industry. His 20 years in the tech industry *meant nothing to me as an ordinary non-tech person who never heard of him, like most people in the world never heard of Robert Scoble if they are outside of Silicon Valley --duh*. That may come as a shock to you, but I can guarantee you that if I call up the top media people in New York City and ask them who Robert Scoble is, unless they are tech editors, they won't know.

Robert Scoble got his followers *on Twitter*. And he got them because in the beginning, there were not that many of us, who knows, perhaps a few thousand, and you could easily talk to anybody. Scoble followed me because I saw him in the public feed and asked a question -- a transaction was about the public feed and the conversation, NOT about big important Robert Scoble and his 20 years blah blah blah. That was was the great leveller but great emancipator of Twitter. Robert Scoble could follow me, a nobody, merely because I could be an interested -- and interesting -- curious nobody. And that's actually how Twitter magic works.

A number of people I followed in the early days, or follow today, because I'm not a tekkie in Silicon Valley, or just not so much following popular culture, turn out to be famous a-listers. These "Maggies" or "Jasons" who I just thought were "some mom" or "some young guy on a computer" turned out to be A-listers in blogs I'd never heard of, A-listing in a world that meant nothing to me on the opposite coast -- and in this, I am NO DIFFERENT than anybody else. Whoever heard of Michael Arrington? Who the hell is Dave Winer? Why are we supposed to care about Shel Israel? Who on earth is Loic LeMeur? These Twitter celebrities aren't really real-life national or international celebrities but just early-adapting leading geeks. But in the world of Twitter, somebody who heard about this service on the networks of Second Life or Facebook (and not mass media) could follow these people -- and talk back, and start a conversation.

Twitter is about conversation. It isn't about what you are doing. It isn't even about what you are thinking. It's about what you are saying and hearing.

So, sorry, I won't be "shutting up". For me personally, getting over the 2,000 limit shouldn't be an issue as I will just slowly keep going up and up over months and months as I have been as people join from all my networks and readers.

But I *am* concerned about what has been deeply affected on the Twitter conversation, which is that old media personalities like David Gregory can "break the rules" and not have to get followers "The Twitter Way" by a real conversation but is a broadcaster, and that Scoble, who worked Twitter like an old pro who always games things like that through excessive use should get to be a broadcaster because he could chatter all day without having followers, follow lots of people and *keep following them* because there were no caps back in the day he amassed his followers.

"I have been on Twitter for two years. Have you?" -- Prokofy

How does the length of time someone has been on Twitter prove that they know Twitter very well? Surely that's a non sequitur? Someone who registered last week but took the time to read through the Help documentation probably understands how Twitter works better than someone who never read Help docs but registered six months ago.

But hey, if you want to use the longevity of one's Twitter account as proof of expertise, I'm fine with that:
- "whois prokofy": Prokofy Neva, since Feb 2007
- "whois mdy": mdy, since Sep 2006

......................................

If people want to follow David Gregory, then surely that's their prerogative? (I personally don't feel the need.)

Over time, if he doesn't provide interesting enough content, people will stop following him... especially when there's a limit on the number of people that an account can follow.

Robert Scoble, whom you like to cite, is also an example. A lot of people followed him on Twitter, yes, but more than a few have since stopped following him because of his tweet volume. If people still want to follow him despite that, then that's their choice.

If someone was famous prior to joining Twitter, then that's a fact of life that has nothing to do with Twitter. People were already listening to that famous person before; now they're just listening via a different medium.

......................................

"Twitter is about conversation. It isn't about what you are doing. It isn't even about what you are thinking. It's about what you are saying and hearing. "

If that's the way you choose to use Twitter, then that's great. (That's also consistent with how I use Twitter myself.)

But I don't believe that's how everyone uses Twitter nor should everyone be expected to use Twitter in the same way.

Someone who wishes to simply lurk and listen, but not tweet should be able to use Twitter that way. Someone who wants to use Twitter to turn his lights on and off should be able to do that too.

Finally, at the risk of being accused of lecturing with smug superiority once again --- IMHO, we can't conclude someone is not listening just because they only follow a few people.

For all we know, that user regularly checks their Replies tab and subscribes to Twitter Search results via RSS to find out what people think. Heck, with Twitter Search, you don't even need a Twitter account anymore if all you want to do is listen.

mdy, dear, I've been on Twitter two years, and you can tell from my number of updates and my followers (1000, 11,000 lol) that I have plenty of knowledge of how Twitter works, and I can read the Help instructions. Duh! Your condescending crap is misplaced, that's all. Knock it off.

Length of time and number of updates and followers are all logical and reasonable markers for "understanding how Twitter works". I realize in this era of the $695 "How to Twitter and Make Millions" workshops that trying to show off your expertise is something you, like Brad down there, need very much, hence your hectoring here.

My points about the problem of a giant feedback loop and the problems of new media and old media are larger and apparently more subtle than narrow, literalist points and "rights" like "people can follow whom they want". Of course they can. I didn't say they couldn't. I'm pointing out that *one way* to avoid the old media effect of broadcasting vs. conversation is to force everyone to the formula of capping -- if capping has to be endured by some, make all endure it to force them to play by new media rather than old media rules. That's all. That isn't a mandate or a request for a feature, it's a political debate. Apparently that's beyond you.

No one has to use Twitter any way or in the new media way. But if people like David Gregory are going to rave about Twitter, and people like Scoble are going to flog new media as the answer to old media's dying, then...we should point out that neither plays by the rule of new media lol.

Sure, people can now even go to an All Top site and read all kinds of breaking feeds from Twitter; they can RSS; they can see websites like mine with Twitter tickers. But...the reality is that most people get most of their Twitter on Twitter itself lol.

The point here is about accountability and consistency of rules and the social mandate here. Those who invoke the rules of new media should also play by them as we mortals do.

It's not that we don't understand what you're complaining about. It's that what you're complaining about is ridiculous.

We get it. It's not fair that Scoble (or David Gregory or Jesus Christ) can follow whoever they want because they have a lot of people following them. (And in some way you feel wronged that they get to do it based on the strength of their audience and you don't.)

But nothing will change that. The rules are to prevent spammers. If you're following 2,000 people who don't want to make an equal connection with you and can't follow any more, then that is too bad. Perhaps you should reassess how you use such "social media".

Everything here is fair: we all play by the same rules. Some rules weren't in effect before, but now they are, and we all play by them. (And the rule is that you can only follow as many people as that follow you past an initial 2,000.) If you want fairness, accountability, and consistency, then you've got them all right here. It just sucks that the rules are restricting you, and we can all understand.

But suck it up and deal, or go to some other service where you can follow however many people you want. I'm sure identi.ca or whatever it is lets you follow millions of people.

(@brad, since Aug 2006.)

P.S. Nothing you can say will make anyone ever believe that anyone could ever follow more than 2,000 active people and actually claim it is useful to them in some way other than trying to farm followers. People should stop trying.

No, you're not understanding but that's because the issues are larger than you prepare willing to admit or realize.

It's not about "fairness" for Scoble or David Gregory or Brad to follow as many or as few as they like. It's not about whether it's "fair" they have more, or whether they "get to" have more.

It's about the process of creating a massive multiperson online community and its rules of the road, and new media versus old media.

I don't need to, um, reassess how I use social media. When I hit the 2000 mark, it's unlikely to faze me as I've always had a more or less 1:1 ratio on Twitter, have grown slowly over months at a time, and it will just keep growing slowly. Big deal. Once again, for the 10th time, "it's not about me," and the constant slams, slights, put-downs, and ignorant judgemental asshattery just has no place in this discussion. There's nothing I "need" here nor am I "whining" about some "loss".

I'm pointing out that it is morally wrong for those saying they live by the rules of new media and social media not to live by those rules.

I'm pointing out that the devs had a way not to punish the slower more authentic Twitterers by simply policing spam and not creating a rule to get rid of spam that harms real users.

I'm pointing out that those who got in before this rule like Scoble could game the system, and those outside like David Gregory can leverage old media fame to game the system, too. So its innocence as an authentic new media experiment is over, and it has failed, as it has merely reproduced old media laws of broadcasting.

No, I refuse to abide by the Forced Migration Policy in which no one can ever criticize, no one can ever object to what the devs have done and their fanboyz like you have approved, without being told to get out if they don't like it. Real life isn't run that way; I fail to see why online services need to be run like Russia and China and not America.

I simply refuse to accept that sort of tyranny. It's unnecessary, and it erodes our freedoms.
http://secondthoughts.typepad.com/sec...

Once again, you are revealing your intrinsic and unexamined contradictions by first claiming "there are no rules on the Internet" or "there is no right way to Twitter" as a reply to my objections *about government and development* (different) and then proceeding to invoke two harsh and nasty rules, that no one can ever go beyond 2000 or should seek to go beyond 2000 because your limitations mean you can't follow so many people, and your suspicious mind and hatred of those who are different means you think they could only be follower-farmers if they do so.

I'm sorry for the sad and cramped state of your vision of Twitter, and I won't be limited by it.

What I don't do is take *you* seriously, as an anklebiter. Bye!

Prokofy, it's really ironic that you lobby labels like "smug and condescending" at me when I'm not the one who goes around saying things like "Apparently that's beyond you."

I don't know why you take offense when people give you more information about a specific Twitter limit when it's obvious enough that you misunderstood the way it works and admitted as much yourself.

Anyway, since you label my attempts to share information with you as "hectoring," please rest assured that I'm done trying to be helpful.

If I had known that my attempts to clear up your misunderstanding of the follow cap would get such a lovely reaction, I'd have kept quiet and let you go on tweeting evidence of your ignorance to your 1000+ followers.