Alex Hillman Writes Here - Latest Comments in I Follow You

Re: I Follow You

Jeffrey — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:25:56 -0000

Cool, I think I'm gonna turn on link lurve to my website :D

Re: I Follow You

alexknowshtml — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:49:25 -0000

@Liz: Liz, I totally agree. Fundamentally, our experiences are richer, and I too appreciate that I can "know" hundreds of people who I likely would never have encountered.

I'm not concerned about people knowing what I'm up to, as it's been far more beneficial than detrimental to myself and those who keep up with me on twitter. I don't feel like I'm being intruded on. That's also been my choice, and to many, seems absurd.

Lucky for them, Twitter is opt-in :)

Re: I Follow You

Liz — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:14:45 -0000

Well, I wanted to say hi to you because I followed you on Twitter in the past. It was just a way to break the ice. I'm not sure what a better way to introduce yourself to someone you already know a little bit about would be. I mean, most people don't just walk up to strangers and say, "Hi, I'm Liz. And you are (looks at name tag), Alex." Saying that you follow someone on Twitter is just a way of making initial contact with someone. It could lead to a conversation or it could just be a way to say, "I find you interesting enough that I want to know what you think about things."

I was at a party the other night for a friend and when I was asked how we met and I said we met on Twitter, people looked at me funny. But, if not for Twitter, we wouldn't have met. Now that we have met, I know them through attending events together. But if not for Twitter, we probably would never have crossed paths.

I have to say that online relationships that move offline are much richer than simply exchanging Tweets with a person. But I now "know" hundreds of people I never would have known existed without Twitter. They aren't all friends or people I will ever meet in person, but Twitter does serve as a useful tool for introduction to new people.

And if people think that is "creepy", they can always go into protected update status and just keep their messages circulated among close associates. Otherwise, it's all public infomation and you shouldn't be surprised at strangers knowing the details of messages you put out there.

Re: I Follow You

alexknowshtml — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:46:50 -0000

@timoni: you're quite right, I'm not suggesting that we reverse the benefits (and detraction) of knowing more about each other.

Thinking about this in a sense of tribal communities and their inner workings, your notion of gang signs and t-shirts aren't outlandish. I mean, they are...but what they represent isn't.

I'm honestly less worried about the individual circles that this happens within. It really gets the weirdest where those circles overlap, and most weird when the circles overlap with those who aren't as used to the hyper connected and our idiosyncrasies.

Average Joe may not know why he's on facebook yet, and how's he going to react when he has his first oddball encounter like the ones we're describing? Will he be ready to be as accepting of it as a norm as we are? Or will he firmly reject it and put us back to square one on a meter of <air quotes>progress</air quotes>.

Re: I Follow You

timoni — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:18:45 -0000

I agree with your central point that it's not good to 'make relationship assumptions based on the “relationships” that are established online.' But your post does leave something to be desired; for better or for worse, interacting socially online means we *do* know more about each other than we would have, say, ten years ago. Clearly the average joe hasn't had to deal with this before; celebrities do, of course, but they have professional help.

I'm sure the Increasingly Connected will muddle their way through somehow, but certainly there has to be a better way than pretending ignorance, or, worse, as tony mentioned above, flat-out deception. I personally prefer a bit of honesty ("I've followed your blog for years!") but if "following" still sounds awkward to you, maybe there's some other way to signify that you you know of each other by internet reputation, if not personally. Like a gang sign. Or a t-shirt. Or another social network.

Re: I Follow You

Walt Ribeiro — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:20:58 -0000

I agree, these connections we make online and the services we use are absolutely geared in the direction of changing how we connect and stay connected through our private lives and through business.

BTW I tend to not worry too much about first impressions. Partly because I usually am not myself when I worry, and because I don't take first impressions too literal on my end when others approach me. I'm more about the second, third, fourth, and fifth impressions - then I make up my mind ;)

Re: I Follow You

alexknowshtml — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:09:05 -0000

@Jesse Middleton: There's even more to consider: intent. With dating sites, there's a clear cut "purpose" for posting certain information.

I buy into your theory of "ego" as the juice that powers social network sites (not posted here, but we've talked offline enough), but I don't think it's the only variable factored into intent.

Re: I Follow You

Jesse Middleton — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:01:34 -0000

This type of thing has been happening for a long time on the internet starting with dating websites. When sites like match.com came out, people would learn about the other person, study them and finally reach out to them through either a 1-to-1 conversation or a group setting. It could strike lead to a strange conversation of, "Oh how is your dog Scrappy doing since his surgery on his hip?" long before you even get to chat.

What's weirder in this situation (on Twitter) is people broadcast in small bursts. So unless you're paying attention all the time (or reading back in the Twitter stream), you may get things much more out of context. When you meet up in real life, those strange conversations could take a turn for the worst when you don't know the whole story.

Re: I Follow You

alexknowshtml — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:13:14 -0000

@Robert Rowe: Sweet. That was the intent: not to call anyone out, but point out that I've experienced both sides of the fence and it's weird no matter which side of the encounter you're on.

It was way cool to meet you this weekend and glad that you came out! Hope to see you around more :)

Re: I Follow You

Robert Rowe — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:55:45 -0000

It's weird to admit this, but I committed the "Oh, you're Alex." when I showed up at the BarCamp Philly kick-off party.
Following people on Twitter got me to BarCamp in the first place.
I certainly can't claim to be an expert on social media, or "social" anything, but your post hit a nerve, and it's definitely making me think.

Re: I Follow You

alexknowshtml (Alex Hillman) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:26:56 -0000

more on the thoughts from earlier this morning about saying "I follow you" http://tinyurl.com/67rumn

Re: I Follow You

Tony Bacigalupo — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 15:28:06 -0000

I go out of my way to not tell people whether I follow them on Twitter when I meet them, and further, if a friend tells me a story that I already read about on their Twitter stream, I don't tell them that I know about it already.

Few things are better conversation killers than constantly shooting down each other's stories with "yeah, I know already... you Tweeted it."

Re: I Follow You

Judson Collier — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:34:32 -0000

It's hilariously creepy.

I was at a concert once, and the bassist was a light twitter user. Not sure he totally grasped the concept of twitter yet because when I met him after the concert there was some real awkward creeper vibes.