That Tall Dude.com

I’m sure you’re all well aware by now, I like Twitter.  A lot.  I follow a lot of people (634), and a lot of people follow me (525).  I’m what people might refer to as a ‘power user.’  I don’t sit back like some people do and just watch, I actively participate in the stream, replying to people with @s, sending and replying to DMs (direct message), following new people I find interesting, and throw out my own original thoughts and ideas, even if they may be a bit controversial at times.  I think after 5500 tweets, and following about 1.2 people for every follower I have, you can logically say I’m not a spammer, but a legit person, with legit frustrations.  When I follow you, I expect you to show at least a small bit of common sense.  Yes, this is part rant, part ‘Twitter users, SHAPE UP!’

Being one who follows pretty much everyone who follows me, I don’t have to worry about a DM not reaching me, because odds are heavily in my favor that it will go through.  I understand that there are some people who don’t follow everyone in return like I do, I have no problem with that.  If I follow you for several months, and I @ you, and you reply to my @ with a DM, I’m fine with that, no problem.  Through the course of time, you will likely not remember that you may not be following me, and when I reply to your DM with my own DM, and I get a message you aren’t following me, I’ll be frustrated, but it’s not a big deal, life goes on.

On the other hand, there was a situation I faced today.  I followed someone on Twitter, and as with every Twitterbud, I added their blog’s feed to Google Reader.  It doesn’t take me long to do this, maybe a minute.  Within 3 minutes of following this person, they sent me a DM saying,

Ok, that’s cool, you want me to subscribe to your blog, as well as thank me for the follow.  I greet all of my new Twitterbuds, so this is not a foreign concept.  However, I immediately started typing a DM in reply, to let her know I had already subscribed to her blog, and received the following message,

This is about as frustrated as a person can get on Twitter, other than a mysterious outage.  In a 5 minute span, I followed, subscribed to blog, received thank you/request DM, and had a DM reply rejected.  I’m still debating whether or not to unfollow her.  Any Twitter user doing due diligence, and this one is a writer for one of the most read tech blogs on the web (which is now one of Technorati’s top 10 most popular), will look at a new follower’s profile, where they can clearly tell if they are following them or not.

So my point here boils down to this, if you aren’t following me, thus preventing me from sending DMs to you, THEN DON”T SEND DMs TO ME!  I understand if it’s been awhile since I followed you, you probably don’t realize it.  But within 5 minutes of following you!?!

Fellow tweeter @RosieWosie watched me tweet about this and threw out her own pet peeve.  People following you, waiting for you to follow them, and then unfollowing you.  I don’t want to be followed just to build up your numbers, I want to be followed because you want to be following me.

So, what bothers you about things people do on Twitter?