Scripting News: An imbalance with Twitter

Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.

An imbalance with Twitter

When Twitter was new, "friendship" required agreement, it was a two-way thing, I couldn't subscribe to you unless you agreed to subscribe to me. This is the normal behavior for social networks, and something like instant message buddy lists, even mail lists. I learned this from listening to the Calacanis interview with Evan Williams.

Somewhere along the way they made a fundamental change, breaking that link. You could subscribe to anyone, without permission, and with no obligation on their part to subscribe to you. This creates imbalances, and makes Twitter like RSS and the blogosphere. Or like publishing anywhere. I might read the Chicago Tribune, but there's no requirement that every columnist has to read this weblog.

So when I ask a question on Twitter, someone who's "following" me might not be able to communicate to me through Twitter, because I might not be following them. You can see this in MD's post, on his blog, where he laments that he had his "first taste of frustration with one-way friendships on Twitter" when I asked my questions. He had answers, but he thought, no way to communicate them.

However, I saw his answers anyway, despite his certainty that I wouldn't. How?

Well, like a lot of other Twitterers, I have a blog, and I use Technorati to see who's talking about my blog. He did a smart thing by pointing to my blog, and he must have pinged Technorati, because his post showed up there shortly after I posted my questions on Twitter, and I saw it, in time for his knowledge to make a difference.

He could have also gone to my account page on Twitter, seen that I have a blog, click on the link, find the comments, and post there.

The point? All these tools integrate and mix. Twitter adds something new and useful, but the other tools don't become less important because of it.

Last update: Thursday, June 3, 2010; 4:00:38 PM

~About the Author~

Dave Winer, 55, is a visiting scholar at NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. He pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in New York City.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

Mail: scriptingnews1mail at gmail dot com.

Mar May