Qwitter has opened up a whole new can of etiquette worms [trying not to distract myself too much on what an etiquette worm would look like] on Twitter.
If you've not heard of Qwitter before, basically once installed, it sends you an email whenever someone unfollows you on Twitter. Of course, anyone blogging and using Twitter to grow a base of followers is stroking their on ego to a certain degree (many rubbing it vigorously). So it's no surprise that Qwitter has enjoyed rapid uptake as your ego needs to know who doesn't like you and it also creates the opportunity for you to exclaim "How very dare they!" hopefully in your thoughts and not out loud as that would be kinda weird.
What's interesting, is that it raises a debate about what the appropriate action you should take after getting an I-think-your-tweets-are-rubbish email. Do you:
- Unfollow them back 'cause their tweets are just as rubbish anyway
- Politely ignore it and pretend that popularity isn't based on quantity but quality of contacts
- Spam them until the end of days
- Remove them from all your social networks and declare them online outcasts
- Cry for 15 minutes at your lost 'friend' only to realise that if you go and follow 10 more people, at least 7 of those will follow you back making you a tidy profit. How fickle friendship is on Twitter!
My friend Jason (oh how tempted I am to link to his twitter profile, but he knows who he is) has a policy of unfollowing qwitters back and then deleting them off Facebook as well. My argument to this is that people may have decided that they don't feel Twitter is the right channel to communicate with them and might rather do that on Facebook. He, of course disagrees.
Personally, I generally don't unfollow them back, karma will deal with them, although I do have a policy of purging my list based more on quality of tweets than whether they follow me or not. That being said, I haven't done a purge since the advent of Qwitter for fear of offending people!
What do you do?
