Twitter madness & the Scoble effect
Sitting here blogging in a coffee shop on Bainbridge Island this afternoon when emails start pouring in saying folks have started following me on Twitter. That screenshot on the left shows you how fast. Some of the followers I know, most I don’t. They’re from all over the world.
I’m thinking someone wrote a script that’s causing ‘spam followers,’ if you will. I’m getting ready to set up a filter in my mail app to send all emails saying someone was following me on Twitter into spam. I was just thinking the last week that Twitter is a cool tool that I’m figuring out how to use. Then this.
So I ‘tweet’ that ‘I am getting hit by ‘spam followers,’ has anyone had that happen to them?” Saad Kamai replied that ‘Somebody recommended you in Twitter, so i guess its natural to get a couple of new ‘followers.’
Couple new followers? More than that. And who has that type of draw? That type of influence to recommend an unknown (I am one) and get folks to start following what you are saying?
Then the answer from Phil Ferris in West Cornwall, UK: “Scoble recommended you a few minutes ago in a Tweet. I call it the Scoble Effect.”
Quick look back in Twirl, my Twitter application, and sure enough.
Scobleizer: I love reading @kevinokeefe who today linked to a thing about lawbloggers doing journalism. He’s a lawyer and a blogger and smart too.
Robert apparently picked up via a tweet of mine that I had posted about lawyers and investigative journalism.
Wow Robert. I’m honored. Seriously. But you’ll need to give folks a warning of what’s coming – when you’re ready to Scobleize them.
Like Jerry Yang when he called Jeff Bezos 12 years ago and said Yahoo was going to name Amazon the ‘site of the day.’ Bezos thought sure and couldn’t figure out why Wang was asking. But Yang wanted to warn him of what’s to come. Bezos had bells on each employees computers (a few only) that rang with each book purchase. Guess the next day when Yahoo did the site of the day the bells rang all day.
Good thing I have the bell notifying me of new emails on mail app turned off. Otherwise the folks in this sleepy little coffee shop would, like me, wonder what the heck’s going on.
Let there be no question as to the influence one person can have on others through blogging and social networking.