Ask500

Twitter in its pure form is a simple chronology, not always a useful way of navigating something. Filtering different friends, types of friends, argument threads etc is not much different to using categories on a blog, is it. If I chose to subscribe to different RSS themes off the same website, it doesn't mean that the information is less important to me does it?

I don't filter other than to put my 'local' followers together so I can track their questions to me more easily. Otherwise, I tend to enjoy the randomness of my Twitter stream; right now I've got everyone from an expectant dad who's wife is in the labour ward to a discussion on suicide, to myriad links (including yours). I may not read them all but their all worth my attention to decide whether I want to peruse them further or not. Twitter is like wading through a river for me; it's there to be jumped in and enjoyed. If people annoy me, or I find I'm just not interested in their tweets (and I'm not saying their boring, just not relevant to me) then I unfollow.

Phew! sorry for the long reply Dilyan...

It can be "wrong", as in the case of people who follow thousands in order to get followed back, but then don't actually pay any attention to all those that follow as they're filtering via Tweetdeck etc.

But filtering can simply be a case of being actually being *more* interested in what those you follow are saying. I know I don't want to miss out on tweets from any of my "real life" friends, so I filter them in Tweetdeck. Similarly, I have a filter to group all music industry people together, so I can refer to this when necessary (eg. work) or follow conversation on a topic as it develops, without getting distracted by people tweeting on other topics.

Just started using twitter and until this question I had been wondering how people followed several hundreds! At this point if I really want to see what friends are saying I can click on their timeline, but it sounds like filtering will make it easier as I follow more people.