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I follow a couple thousand people on Twitter. It's a mix of infosec folks, developers, startup friends, comic book artists, news people, comedians, a variety.

I follow a couple thousand people on Twitter. It's a mix of infosec folks, developers, startup friends, comic book artists, news people, comedians, a variety. It's less I'm trying to follow individual people and more that I'm trying to find interesting thoughts or articles or art that they're creating or sharing. Even so, there is still "noise" in that you'll see the same article surface multiple times or the same news story be bandied about (for the last 24 hours it's been pretty Sam Nunberg).

agumonkey 9y ago
> Nunberg and now even HN is :p
WorldMaker 9y ago
> Even so, there is still "noise" in that you'll see the same article surface multiple times For a while that was my benchmark for what was worth reading if I saw an article surface more than once it was possible of interest to multiple circles of interests rather than one, and likely worth the time to read. Of course, that was the time before sites like Buzzfeed/Upworthy and the general expansion of a culture of writing articles specifically for reshare virality.
- alsetmusic 9y ago
  > For a while that was my benchmark for what was worth reading if I saw an article surface more than once it was possible of interest to multiple circles of interests rather than one, and likely worth the time to read. There was a clever RSS reader that worked on this principle. Sadly, it is no longer being developed. https://feedafever.com https://feedafever.com
andrei_says_ 9y ago
How is it humanly possible to ingest the daily feeds from a couple of thousand of people? I follow about a hundred or so and I get 300-400 items per day. I use lists for different topics but following one of the lists takes too much time. In addition to this, nobody stays on topic. The political climate is so intense that the reactions to it permeate everything. The signal to noise ratio is becoming unacceptable and I’m not aware of any tools to improve it.
- danso 9y ago
  I follow about 8,000+ people, because I follow just about anyone who has a relatively active account and who may be affiliated in my professional and academic networks. Partly I do this as passive networking, much easier to reach out to people on a cold call when we follow each other. And partly because I like reading tweets from people who I've never met or really known. The trick is that I don't treat Twitter as a newscast but as a stream of interesting thoughts to sample from when I have free time. I do keep a secret list of people who use Twitter to put out original work that I'll check from time to time but mostly I find that my general timeline has most of the interesting tweets in it anyway, because of how Twitter curates the top of it -- with the What-You-Might-Have-Missed, even if you have your timeline in chrono order.
- petercooper 9y ago
  How is it humanly possible to ingest the daily feeds from a couple of thousand of people? I know a few hundred people in real life but I don't feel a need to call them all up every single day. Ditto for Twitter. I can follow a wide range of people and dip in and out of it, enjoy the variety, and move on. I'd want to read everyone's every tweet as little as I'd want to know every one of my acquaintance's thoughts every day..
  - betenoire 9y ago
    but... but you get choose who you call, so you only make one call. But you can't unread tweets to find the one you want to read. So are these just snapshots of a moment in time you look at? Which is nothing like calling someone on the phone.
- noobermin 9y ago
  I mean, you get 300-400 items a day? Do you read it all? I think the best method is just to not read it all. Just scan for a few minutes until you're bored then stop. Do you read every HN post? Much less should you feel the need to read every tweet.
  - andrei_says_ 9y ago

agumonkey 9y ago

> Nunberg and now even HN is :p

WorldMaker 9y ago

> Even so, there is still "noise" in that you'll see the same article surface multiple times For a while that was my benchmark for what was worth reading if I saw an article surface more than once it was possible of interest to multiple circles of interests rather than one, and likely worth the time to read. Of course, that was the time before sites like Buzzfeed/Upworthy and the general expansion of a culture of writing articles specifically for reshare virality.

alsetmusic 9y ago
> For a while that was my benchmark for what was worth reading if I saw an article surface more than once it was possible of interest to multiple circles of interests rather than one, and likely worth the time to read. There was a clever RSS reader that worked on this principle. Sadly, it is no longer being developed. https://feedafever.com https://feedafever.com

andrei_says_ 9y ago

How is it humanly possible to ingest the daily feeds from a couple of thousand of people? I follow about a hundred or so and I get 300-400 items per day. I use lists for different topics but following one of the lists takes too much time. In addition to this, nobody stays on topic. The political climate is so intense that the reactions to it permeate everything. The signal to noise ratio is becoming unacceptable and I’m not aware of any tools to improve it.

danso 9y ago
I follow about 8,000+ people, because I follow just about anyone who has a relatively active account and who may be affiliated in my professional and academic networks. Partly I do this as passive networking, much easier to reach out to people on a cold call when we follow each other. And partly because I like reading tweets from people who I've never met or really known. The trick is that I don't treat Twitter as a newscast but as a stream of interesting thoughts to sample from when I have free time. I do keep a secret list of people who use Twitter to put out original work that I'll check from time to time but mostly I find that my general timeline has most of the interesting tweets in it anyway, because of how Twitter curates the top of it -- with the What-You-Might-Have-Missed, even if you have your timeline in chrono order.
petercooper 9y ago
How is it humanly possible to ingest the daily feeds from a couple of thousand of people? I know a few hundred people in real life but I don't feel a need to call them all up every single day. Ditto for Twitter. I can follow a wide range of people and dip in and out of it, enjoy the variety, and move on. I'd want to read everyone's every tweet as little as I'd want to know every one of my acquaintance's thoughts every day..
- betenoire 9y ago
  but... but you get choose who you call, so you only make one call. But you can't unread tweets to find the one you want to read. So are these just snapshots of a moment in time you look at? Which is nothing like calling someone on the phone.
noobermin 9y ago
I mean, you get 300-400 items a day? Do you read it all? I think the best method is just to not read it all. Just scan for a few minutes until you're bored then stop. Do you read every HN post? Much less should you feel the need to read every tweet.
- andrei_says_ 9y ago