If you’ve spent any time on Twitter, undoubtedly you’ve seen these #FF or #FollowFriday memes that have users suggesting their favorite Tweeps to follow. It carries the same feelings of the once-envied MySpace Top Eight, but without the exclusivity of limits.
Always nice to get picked, it seems that the more recommendations one receives the more they’re willing to give. Which ends up with a tweet of links. No rationale on why you should follow them, just one link in a tweet alongside several others. Perhaps even one link in a list of tweets with even more links. So what’s the point?
Earlier today there was some speculation about @TwitterShoutOut, a Twitter account that looked to be the first steps of an official Twitter recommending service. What I can only imagine would evolve into a more official (not to mention beneficial) recommending system, @TwitterShoutOut is alleged to provide users with the ability to recommend other users to their followers while giving reason and rationale for their online endorsement.
Unfortunately this rumor was dispelled a few hours ago, with an official Twitter rep admitting that although @TwitterShoutOut is a Twitter-official account, it’s for internal purposes only. So Twitter employees can virtually high-five each other all day long, but the rest of us are forced to hold our endorsements in until Friday, only to then explode with a list of links.
Do you think there’s any benefit to being included in a Follow Friday link list? Do you take other recommendations on who to follow if accompanied with #FF or #FollowFriday? Would you use an official Twitter Endorsement Service, if they were to develop one?
