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Freakonomics: The etiquette of 'following' on Twitter
This picture taken on January 27, 2010 in Paris shows the internet homepage of the microblogging website Twitter.
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Kai Ryssdal: Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio. It's that moment every couple of weeks where we spend some time with Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and the blog of the same name. Dubner, I'll tell ya, it is spectacular to have you back.
Stephen Dubner: Hi there. I am happy to back on @mktplaceradio. Last time, left me ROFL! Wanted to get back ASAP. Two weeks away is too long! #imisskai
Ryssdal: Obviously we're talking today about Twitter.
Dubner: That was 140 characters worth of hello, Kai, exactly 140 characters.
Ryssdal: Was it really?
Dubner: Yep. Including exclamation points.
Ryssdal: Now, since we are talking about Twitter, first of all, I'm @kairyssdal, and you guys are @freakonomics. But here's the thing: You guys are jerks, in like Twitter-land, right? I mean, you have like 250,000 people following you, and yet you follow no one.
Dubner: We follow zero people, yeah. So some people, like you, might call us jerks -- since we're talking Twitter here, they might call us "twerks."
Ryssdal: Yeah, I never liked the whole "tw" in front of words. But anyway, that's just cold, it's like rude, right? Marketplace follows 350-something people.
Dubner: Yeah, I see you followed the Financial Times and Politico, Nascar, David Lynch. And I see you also follow Freakonomics, so thank you for that.
Ryssdal: We do because we are reciprocal kind of people here, obviously not like you. And I actually enjoy myself a little Nascar. But you won't even follow us. I hate that.
Dubner: Well here's the thing: When we set up our account, we were advised by very brilliant media strategists that it was bad form to expect anyone to follow us if we weren't following a whole lot of people back. But we kind of didn't want to turn it into some tit-for-tat thing, where pretty soon you're spending your whole day on Twitter worrying about whom to follow and who to be followed by.
Ryssdal: But isn't reciprocity the name of the game here? Shouldn't you follow people -- right, that's the basic point? And I've gotten myself a little expert here. I'm going to introduce you to a guy named Joe Fernandez. He's the CEO of a company named Klout, and every day, Klout analyzes data from all those bajillion tweets that are out there. They look at what gets re-tweeted, who's paid attention to, and then they give them a grade, or what's called a "Klout score." So Joe, welcome to the program.
Joe Fernandez: Thank you, thank you for having me.
Ryssdal: So talk to me about this analysis of Twitter strategy that you guys do and specifically what Dubner's doing in not following people. Is Dubner being rude here; don't you have to follow to get followers?
Fernandez: For most people, that is the case, that it's really, really tough unless you're Kanye West or something to get people to care enough about what you say without any intention of possibly even listening back.
Dubner: So here's the thing, Joe and Kai, you know for us, the way we use Twitter is just as a kind of bullhorn, to let people know what we're up to. Now Joe, I do see that the biggest tweeters in the world -- Lady Gaga and President Obama for instance -- they each follow hundreds of thousands of people. But I mean, come on, really -- do those people really think that Lady Gaga and President Obama are reading their tweets?
Fernandez: I'm guessing a lot of them probably do think that, from some of the behavior we see on Twitter. The method of using Twitter as just a broadcast medium and you're publishing content from Freakonomics, that is also powerful and it's different than a person who's using Twitter to engage with their network and their friends. For celebrities like a Lady Gaga, I think they use the follow as a small act of kindness to their fans.
Ryssdal: That's so funny. That's Stephen Dubner right there: the benevolent Twitter-er. He just lets people follow him and sort of takes all the love. Hey Joe, thanks a lot.
Fernandez: Thank you.
Ryssdal: All right, so Dubner, defend yourself, will you?
Dubner: So look Kai, I get your point. We may not be the best Twitter citizens in the world, but at least we're upfront. We don't pretend to care about people that we don't care about, and we certainly don't do the big no-no, which is the Twitter one night stand, where you sign up to follow a ton of people just to get them to follow you back and then you dump it later.
Ryssdal: Very, very cold. But I'm going to stick to my guns here and you know what, I bet the Twitter-sphere will back me up.
Dubner: Let me bring in my expert, my little Marshall McLuhan moment here. This is Duncan Watts, who's a sociologist who works as a research scientist at Yahoo. Duncan recently wrote a paper called, "Who Says What to Whom on Twitter." And Watts says it's very important that we don't confuse Twitter with social media like Facebook where reciprocity -- as you put it, Kai -- really is the coin of the realm.
Duncan Watts: It's worth emphasizing again here that Twitter is not a social network. Social networks are characterized by very, very high levels of reciprocity. So if I say that I'm friends with you, it's very likely that you will also say that you're friends with me.
Ryssdal: And I am proud, Stephen Dubner, to call you a friend. But I still think you're not a reciprocal kind of guy, so are you going to change your Twitter ways or not?
Dubner: You know, I think we're going to stick with our plan for now, but with one small change: Kai, you happen to have a computer anywhere?
Ryssdal: I do. We've got sophisticated studios here at Marketplace.
Dubner: Do me a favor. Open up the Freakonomics Twitter page, if you don't mind.
Ryssdal: All right. There it is. It's up. You're following -- hey! Are you following me? That's awesome.
Dubner: I got to tell you, I do know where to find the unfollow button on Twitter too.
Ryssdal: And so do I. I can unfollow you faster than you can unfollow me. Unbelievable. Stephen J. Dubner, you can get him on Twitter at @freakonomics. He's our Freakonomics correspondent, you can subscribe to their podcast as well and a whole lot more: FreakonomicsRadio.com. Dubner, we'll see you.
Dubner: Lots of hashtags to you, Kai.
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I always find it a little difficult to know what the best balance of following to followers should be, but you only have so much control over it, so I try not to sweat it. I think it's one of those things that balances itself out over time, and I'm a relatively new tweeter. Thanks for covering something that's been itching the back of my brain for a while now guys. It's good to know I'm not the only one pondering such a thing. - @PhillyFunMoney
So, basically face-book and twitter are that perfect blend of scratching the need for attention-whoring, and affirmation via herd dynamics. Sheeple is the term coined years ago, I think.
Call it iSheeple[n+1], if that feels better.
These are business models created unto themselves, for themselves, so yes, they are self-relevant. They do not generate a positive impact on the world of any sort, except for the people that own face-book&twitter. OK, yea, so a couple revolutions were in fact 'televised' thanks to twitter, sure. They offer nothing but a willing collective ear to whoever can bend that ear. A tool.
Oil futures are not self-relevant, they affect the physical realm, and actually give people something to twit about.
That being said commodity futures are, to my limited understanding [and less limited opinion], even more absurd than twitter. For example one could reason that when twitter goes to a pay/tweet or pay/follow model, I could trade futures on lady-gaga's twitter-follow yield.
If you think that twitter and facebook arent self-relevant economic entities, you need to wake up and smell the social media coffee brewing. Just because *I* find oil futures boring and inane doesn't make them less relevant for an economic talk show, does it? Keep up the good, interesting work Kai!
If you think that twitter and facebook arent self-relevant economic entities, you need to wake up and smell the social media coffee brewing. Just because *I* find oil futures boring and inane doesn't make them less relevant for an economic talk show, does it? Keep up the good, interesting work Kai!
Kai- ten minutes on tweeting? Really? You are airing your ideas and disappointments about tweeting norms on my favorite RADIO station. Although I wouldn't expect you to act any differently, have you no cognitive di$$onance about this clash of media? Anyway, how about ten minutes worth of tweets on your twitter-feed about radiophonic communications, and how it shapes the exchange of ideas? An interesting hook perhaps?: Few worthwhile ideas or opinions can be reduced to 140 dispassionate characters effectively; that's why radio overwhelmed the telegraph in the first place.
Why does STeve Dubner get regular exposure on "public" radio while left wing voices are marginalized? Isn't it the duty and mission of public raido to brig all voices to the table ,especially alternative ones that may not otherwise be heard? Furthermore
the converstion could not have been more white adolescent male pandering with its useless bantering about "lady gaga .Let her do her own marketing, thank you.As if this wasn't ad enough did you really have to introduce this crap by vomiting that garage band metal on us? THe only Marketplace segment I remeber thatexceeded this in compromising "public" radio's integrity was the toasting of the anniversary of we'fare"reform" by two privileged white males to the exclusion of advocates for the disadvantged.So where is the public in "public' radio?
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