Twitterer of the Year: One Award We Can Do Without

by Karoli on December 20, 2008

I love Robert Scoble, but sometimes he drives me nuts. It’s bad enough that Time culls out one person as their Person of the Year (even if it is Barack Obama), that Dave Winer names a “Blogger of the Year” (even if he does choose interesting bloggers), and that every publication and website is eagerly building their year-end top ten lists.

Scoble’s latest question is this: Who is “Twitterer of the Year“?

Twitter is inherently democratic. The voices you hear are the voices you want to hear. You get to filter the ones you don’t want to hear. Every single decision to follow or not follow someone is purely subjective, based on your individual filters and preferences.

Every person on Twitter creates and shapes their own community based on their filters. My mother would never follow Tim O’Reilly, no matter how wonderful his Tweets might be. For as many people that follow Robert on Twitter or Friendfeed, there are hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) who don’t. Nothing personal, Robert, it’s just that they’re creating their own community (or micro-community) around their own interests and voices.

This is why the question is silly. It’s beyond silly, it’s idle. There is no one “Twitterer of the Year”. We are all contributors to our communities, and we all have value. No one person has greater value than another.

Robert, the better question would be this: When will Twitter give us track so we can discover and create even better communities?

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Tagged as: awards, Dave Winer, lists, Robert Scoble, top10, twitter

  • Mark Schulz
    sigh....I guess it's just in our nature (at least the boys) to get our special parts out on the table at each opportunity and re-rank everyone's social status. Even on Twitter, we are still Primates. The thing that excites me about Twitter and what it represents is precisely the opportunity it affords to try something different for a change -- a communication medium that affords everyone a chance to be heard and to listen to others without the normal social cliques & hierarchies that typically separate us. We can't help but fret over who's the most popular, but we don't have to celebrate it.
  • Let me add to this my own apathy toward the Shorty Awards (or whatever they are called!) No offense to the couple of people who have nominated me; I'm flattered. Nor to others who think it is fun.

    I just think it's a waste of time. How do I nominate one tweep without making others feel bad? I can't nominate everyone, either! It's more of a popularity contest than anything real. One person who nominated me actually dm'd me to suggest I should nominate her (actually she worded it more tactfully, something like "if you'd like to nominate me, please use categoryX so I'm not competing against my friends".

    I just think it's silly.

    I do think some twitterers add more value than others. But don't we know this by the number of people that follow them? Although you could also argue that there are quiet, but powerful twitterers out there who aren't well known, but their loyal following gets a lot of value from them.

    In the end, the "award" doesn't really mean much, and spending time trying to win has little ROI.

    imho
  • I agree, and would go so far as to say that it creates a false tier of importance, simply because value judgments are purely subjective. I'm sure there are people out there who followed and unfollowed me during the election because of the noise I created, especially on debate nights. Others liked what I said. Neither is wrong, it's just a matter of preference. Add in the global access to Twitter, etc. and also the instant-ness of it. Three weeks ago, we might've nominated someone in Mumbai. One week ago, someone in Greece. Or neither.
  • Great post, Karoli and it's not bullshit at all.

    The problem with this sort of thing is that it reinforces the idea that these tools and platforms are more about personal brand building rather than community, etc.

    It encourages people to think about their tweets in some sort of skewed qualitative way that betrays what Twitter actually is and means to a number of us.

    And it opens the doors even further to the marketers, gamers and self-obsessed.

    Twitter is wonderful and we could all come up with a "Top 10" personal list. But that's the point... it's subjective. Call it a Silicon Valley Twitterer of the Year if you're of that perspective. But to pretend like we can have a metavision of who is the "best" Twitterer is just erroneous.

    Sam
  • That's bullshit, but that's OK. I read thousands of twitterers and they don't all have the same value. Nice that you think they do. But, sorry, some do add a lot more value to the world than others. I won't apologize for trying to expose those who add huge amounts of value.
  • Steve
    not bullshit at all. they add value to ~your~ world. it's an important distinction more people should consider. Your world does not equal The World
  • Wow. Karoli's blog post was fairly balanced, imho, particularly with regard to how she disagreed with you. Too bad you couldn't respond in a likewise fashion.
  • Who died and named you arbiter of what's valuable to the world? What's valuable to me isn't necessarily at all the same as what's valuable to you.

    That's my point! We all have a different set of filters and expectations for this medium, and no one is going to be able to take one person and call them "Twitterer of the year."

    Are you going to take into account Japanese, Chinese, Italian and other foreign-language twitterers or is this just the English-speaking American Twitterer of the Year award?
  • Who said I'm going to decide who it is? I just asked the question and am watching the responses. If you have something to add, put it forth. Otherwise you are just being added to the "complainer of the year" list.
  • Woo, I suggest you add me to the 'Bitch of the year' list, where you'll find hundreds who will agree with you. I am one of the Bitch elite, didn't you know?
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