Technology and Living in the 21st Century

This week, Twitter introduced a new policy that restricts the average Twitter user to following no more than 1000 people in a given day. This was implemented to address performance issues that have recently plagued Twitter. Now I think that this is a good short term policy while the company expands their infrastructure to better handle the load.

However, I don't think this policy is being implemented for the right and proper reasons. If you are new to Twitter or are looking for new people to follow and want some recommendations, the guys at twitter will be more than happy to give you a few people who you can follow. The list of "Suggested Users" has grown significantly and includes the likes of @aplusk and @cnnbrk who were recently involved in a very public marketing campaign. I doubt that any of these accounts have the same limitations placed on them as the rest of the Twittersphere. Can you imagine if this policy was in place for @aplusk, @cnnbrk, @TheEllenShow, or @johncmayer? This policy is in place so that the celebrities and others on the "Suggested Users" page can be followed by as many people as possible without impacting the user experience of following celebrities and other famous Twitter accounts. Oh, and all of these tweeters are primarily one way conversations. Just another way to send out a message to the masses.

This new policy has created an even more 'elite' status on Twitter. Not only are you famous but you can have tens of thousands of people follow you every day while we toil in the weeds. Granted, I will never follow a thousand people in one day. But you never know, I may want to one day. Hopefully, by then, Twitter will have expanded their infrastructure enough to allow me to follow more people than I could possibly manage without my tweeting turning into a full time job.

Till then, I will continue to tweet in mediocrity.