Question: what are ya'll's thoughts as far as follow etiquette goes? I have about 150 followers. I'll go out on a limb and say I know maybe 35-45 of them personally. If someone random starts following me (not the robots, those usually get blocked) do I have to follow them back, at least for a bit? Some people just aren't interesting, and it takes too long to read everything.

To clarify: I don't mean the people trying to market things; I don't block them but certainly don't follow back. I mean the regular, average joe, you-and-me tweeter.

Ditto. I have mine set to private, too, and I only allow people to follow me that I already follow. But I also follow people like Kevin Rose, Dr. Drew, LeVar Burton that just have too many followers to follow me back.

Many of the Joe Schmoes who add you but don't know you are just following you so that you add them, anyway. They want to get their follower count up.

There's this local chick that has 50,000 followers. She's just some average middle aged lady who's friends with a bunch of local online pioneers. I decided to follow her one day to see what the hype was about...and I wasn't impressed. I realized she was just a follower whore.

My 8th grade teacher found me one day. I debated letting him view my posts, but I decided against it. That was just too creepy.

I'll add somebody if I think he/she's interesting or if we have mutual friends. I follow several of you on GC as well. I'm fine with my less than 100 followers!

I think I have 12 followers - I'm selective LOL

I don't understand Twitter.

Are you just updating people on random stuff that you do throughout the day? I guess I just don't understand this obsession with telling everyone about all of the happenings in my life. It's bad enough that Facebook notifies people when I add a new friend, or write on someone's wall. Now I'm updating people when I'm watching a football game? Or going out for drinks? Or eating?

I'm confused.

Twitter lets people know what you're doing.

If you don't feel comfortable letting people know what you do, don't sign up for it. As I said previously, it saved my ass last December when we had an island-wide blackout. It's also a good source of roads to avoid when dealing with rush hour traffic.

You're not just letting people know what you'd doing. Sometimes people post breaking news. Or links to news worth reading. My friend even sold Girl Scout cookies for his daughter on Twitter. It's become the 3rd largest social networking site online -- only behind #1 Facebook and #2 Myspace.

I like reading celeb and lawmaker tweets, especially. Hearing from Ryan Seacrest that he was about to go on live with the American Idol results show and he hadn't peed since lunch was quite entertaining to read. :)

Facebook isn't enough?

Siiigh....maybe I will try it...I don't know.

ETA: Why does twitter sound like another instant messenger software?

I don't really see it as an instant messenger. It's more like blogging, except in 140 characters or less.

Can I get addiction counseling if I stay on it too long?

DS, they've got addiction counseling for everything! :D

...and happy pills.

Right?

Those happy pills are magic, trust me!

You are Twitter pimp aren't you?