Overfriending

Just today I noticed somebody new following me on Twitter. Somebody with the user-name OOzzl, he(since there's a picture) is also following 144869 others. Yep, that's right one hundred forty four thousand eight hundred and sixty nine others. WTF.

I do get it. He's a collector. He thinks that by following me there's a good chance I will be following him. But NO. I don't need another so-called friend. I truly believe, that my online friends should be at least somewhat similar to my off-line friends. I can't believe I just called REAL LIFE - off-line.

So here it is - Facebook's Beacon failed and there are a lot of reasons, but one that nobody's talking about is - that Word of Mouth only works if you care about the person's opinion in the first place. Oozzl's opinion on the other hand means absolutely nothing to me.

There's a definite connection between me, my every-day decisions (where to eat, what movie to see, which department store to shop at) and the source of the recommendation. If I don't know you, don't respect you - it means ... you guessed it.

Oh yeah, couple of weeks ago I met an old friend on the street and later tried to contact him on Orkut, but unfortunately he's over his friends limit. In case you didn't know, I'm pretty sure it's at 1000. I'm happy for him - that is a lot of friends.

Too bad, there's just very little value from marketer's point of view with these online super-connectors. The connections are too weak. That's putting it mildly, quite often the connections are non-existent.

So I will keep my real life friends and connect with them in real life, using all possible communication methods. Online and off-line.