Who do you follow on Twitter and why do you follow them? Before I explain my views, I’d be interested in hearing  about who you follow and why. Please take the quick poll below and please follow TDR on Twitter.

As my band of followers approaches 500, I’ve still try to put some thought into who I follow. There’s no one answer except I try to follow folks who are interesting, edgy and with whom I have something in common. And I routinely follow friends, family and known colleagues (the ones I like anyway-:).

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As Twitter evolves, my philosophy could change. I’ve resisted trying to amass a huge following for its own sake….following tons of people so they’ll follow me back. At this early stage, who knows? That may be the right way. Will massive legions of followers with some approaching a million just keep growing and for what purpose? Will they be money makers and how? Or will Twitter be mostly for fun and professional exposure?

Pondering where Twitter is headed is fascinating. The last annual growth figure measured in twit volume I saw was 1,382 per cent. Will people tire of it? That may be a possibility. My tweet level has gone down slightly, but nowhere near as much as my time on Facebook. It seems like the Twits aren’t as active as usual today.  Still, those who follow the company say Twitter is worth no less than $1 billion to whoever might be interested in buying it.

Who I follow is the direct result of who follows me because I rarely if ever scour the followers of my followees. Perhaps I should do more of that. I check out those who follow me. That’s probably pretty-narrow minded.

Quid pro quo “You follow me and I’ll follow you” doesn’t factor much into it even though some Twits say it’s “rude” not to follow back. I can understand that. I generally dislike twitterers who have massive followings and who follow back very few. That’s why I removed from Shaq (582,105 followers/following 488) who didn’t seem to tweet much anyway.I wonder if he has a professional twit to cover for him.

In any event, I follow folks who have something in common with me. In no specific order, I like bloggers, journalists, technology people,  news hounds, web folk, edginess and more randomly, interesting people. And I check out the profile of everyone who follows me which is still manageable given I’ve been adding about 15 followers a day.

Yesterday, I also went back and looked at my following and removed about five I felt I had nothing in common with or because just because I felt like. It’s hard to really know people on Twitter. Facebook is better at that. I suspect in a month or two, my following will be big enough where I no longer will have time to review it on a comprehensive basis.

And don’t forget, follow TDR on Twitter.