Happy week without Twitter & the order of the Conservation law

There IS life without Twitter and digital socializing - for at least a week. Running through these Web 1.0 days was like the passage of a bright idea while heated with fever. Of course, that's a rhetorical exaggeration. Don't get me wrong: I like talking with people and new followers inflate my ambition as well. Nevertheless, it was another guide to the following strategies on Twitter that brought back to life my 2.0-polemical itch. Meet Kevin Rose and his 10 ways to increase Twitter followers published at TechCrunch.

I wouldn't start a discussion on personal pros and cons of the quantity of followers. Just a piece of meditation: despite the narcotic power of social appreciation I myself really enjoy the other basic foundation of online activity– the power of feedback. BTW, it's human nature as well – the derivative of our cognitive instinct.

Whatever. I doubt if my own Twitter experience hath in this line some interest: 119 following and 120 followers. That doesn't impress much. On the one hand, I really try to read tweets (the task becomes more complex as the number of people I follow grows), and on the other, I don't think, that my 140-letter messages are even noticed by 99% of followers. The rest are within a statistical error. That's ok. Mind share should be won and the network of interesting interlocutors should be built up laboriously.

But it's not the personal advantages that the founder of Digg Kevin Rose is talking about in his article. He's talking about professional ones. To be more precise, the chase for numbers is assumed to be necessary by default. And Kevin – with his accurately sighted rifle (Pownce was a perfect target) – gives a very reasonable breakdown of simple (and executable!) rules of attraction. Kiss me baby one more time.

Cool, I'm not kidding. However, the big picture view highlights a very serious problem that all of those who follow his advice may encounter: it contradicts the Conservation law, which is probably the most fundamental law in our Universe. Let me explain the histrionics.

1. The cash contradiction

Ok, you have a 'powerful twool' and can easily spread your ideas or information about your products or things with a very low CPC. In my view, Kevin's (and Guy's, and Robert's) pitch has an obvious pitfall – equality of users. Even if all the IT-guys join Twitter and FriendFeed they still have to generate revenues selling some stuff outside (directly or through ads). If they don't, it contradicts the Conservation law: there should be an external source of cash.

Hence, warming up a no-brainer chase for followers en masse is not a good idea. Either your messages will drown in the unbearable sea of data, or you'll just have to... I don't know... switch to another hip service.

In the long run a candy for the 'non-professional' audience (or at least for those who don't get bored with the same stuff) should exist, no doubts. But the current motivation seems weird and hardly monetizable. Nothing survives if it contradicts the Conservation law.

2. The background contradiction

Here's the point and it's very simple: to be interesting you have to invest time in personal development. The abovementioned rules of attraction are rather time consuming. Of course, if you are Stephen Fry or at least Guy Kawasaki you don't really have to worry about tweets.

If not, you have to invest some time outside Twitter in order to bring in something new (remember the Conservation law). And I doubt that gaining new followers may really inspire that.

Sigh, the vicious circle. If you want to be interesting you have to work hard outside Twitter, otherwise it mutates into a classifieds board with an option of news feed. If you do some studies IRL or even read books it's hard to: watch what top users tweet, get involved in #hash tag memes, track results, etc.

Enjoy this content? Add me at twitter.com/alankodzasov. If you don't I won't take offence, though.

Illustrations: = FoX =, id4.ru, lifeboat.com.