Hi Dave,

Glad I helped prompt you to write about this! It is a great piece, and it is always useful to see someone else’s perspective. As I was reading this, it reminded me of the role analysis piece of Folksonomological Reification (http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/folksonomological-reification/6043166) which I wrote a while back. You advocate clarity in choice of roles when using Twitter – which I think is good, but I am not sure I have put that much cognitive effort into it.

I haven’t pruned my Twitter network at all yet. I choose to follow people either because I have seen the other end of conversations with them or because they follow me. I then get curious enough to look at what they have to say for themselves, and if I like it I follow them. Like you, though, ‘if I like it’ doesn’t mean ‘if they agree with me’ – I follow people who will stretch my understanding and give me insights into areas where I am weak (most!). Without deliberately designing my Tweeple to be one, I am building my personal learning network – people who help me understand the world better, who make me think. Maybe one day I will have enough people attracting my attention that I will have to see about some un-following.

I think a strength of Twitter, over, say IRC, is that it is a global space. Because it isn’t fragmented, it allows dynamic communities to spring up. Whilst walled gardens have their purpose (protecting fragile flowers while they develop, either horticulturally or academically) a global space also has benefits.