Monkey See, Monkey Do

i keep getting notices that i’m being followed on twitter, by some username that is cryptic. this then begins a short exercise in googling and trying to figure out if this is a person i know or not. sometimes i can guess, people who are following tons of folks are just promoting themselves. but other times the person has only a couple followers, adds me, and i get the feeling this is someone i know. i just can’t tell because their username is foreign.

so anonymity in this case is a probably a problem. i’m sure if they realized what i was going through, these followers would include a short note when they followed me to let me know who they are. just a real name would be sufficient. a short hello would be even more polite.

i appreciate that the follow button is simple and straight forward. to add complexity to that might be less aesthetic, but i experience the anonymous following as a social problem. if i chose not to follow a friend when they’re following me, it could be perceived as a snub. not knowing that the friend is a friend then is a real problem. twitter could try things to alleviate this. for example, when a friend clicks to follow me or uses their find friends interface, it could depict what i will see and ask if that’s enough for friends to know who you are. then offer a simple way to add a short, direct message to those followed if they want. an alternative would be to have a facebook style disclosure by default. people you follow get to see your additional info, whereas random people will not. that way i can see a short description or name for each person following me. one could leave it blank for true anonymity, but the site might recommend people add at least their first name and location or similar.