Much has been said about how badly Follow Friday (#followfriday, #ff) has gone fail. At Twiistup last month, lalawag founder Sean Percival poked fun at Micah Baldwin (@micah), the creator of the popular concept: “what was your inspiration for that horrible idea that pollutes the Twitter stream?”
Micah doesn’t disagree that this is what #followfriday has become. And while many suggestions have been made about solving the spamfest, none of them have really stuck. Every Friday, as sure as the sun, the senseless lists of people begin to clutter our streams. Who are these people?!
And forget trying to check your @replies on Fridays. That’s just an invitation to see yourself squeezed like a sardine among other Twitter users who, more often than not, have about as much in common with you as an apple has with a machine gun.
So how do you turn the oil tanker? Mike Prasad (@mikeprasad) has an idea: Follow Friday Fact (#FFFact).
Here’s how it works:
Instead of listing all the people you think rock in one tweet or (God help us) a series of tweets, you name a single user and list an informative tidbit about them.
“Most people didn’t follow @micah’s original format of including at least a category or key words about the person being #FF,” Mike tells me. “With #FFFact, you learn something about the person mentioned. Coming up with a good #FFFact is surprisingly hard, but it forces you to really think about who you #FFFact and therefore the recommendation has much more value.”
I never check #followfriday recommendations because I have no time to click the hundreds of people that are listed every Friday to see what they’re about and discern whether they’re follow-worthy. #FFFact does the job for me. And checking my @replies for #FFFacts? That’s a delicious new dimension to ego-surfing–and I can always roll with that.
Micah digs it. Do you?
Photo is comprised of Twitter avatars. Top: @mikeprasad, @micah, @seanpercival, @shiralazar, @heathermeeker, @theman, @missro, @dmosites. Middle: @MarshaCollier, @wmmarc, @natasha, @haileybright, @caseymckinnon, @rudy, @lauriepercival, @DvinMsM. Bottom: @drew, @alexiatsotsis, @paigecraig, @knowisayin, @iconverdge, @michaelpilla, @joannalord, @gammill.
