Just to get the self-promotion out of the way. Follow me on Twitter.

Today, I experienced three different aspects of Twitter, each one that I absolutely enjoy. Lets call it Shout Outs, Props and the Dozens.

The Shout Outs:

Our community is highly intelligent and giving.

Darren Rowse, who I met at SXSW, and runs a pretty popular blog called ProBlogger, tweeted that he was under the weather, and asked for submissions. In about 20 minutes he had 73. They are all posted here:

@CleverUserName - A tale of resurrection
@jdevalk - PageRank sculpting - Siloing and more
@ajvchuk - Yep these are my Twitter friends….
@frankmartin - Focus Groups - Part 4
@mjkeliher - The Shankman FTW: Facebook failing as favorite Web hub
@ninjapoodles - Life In The Slow Lane–WITH CHICKENS
@travelrants - Tips for a healthy and Safe holiday
@johnhood - Cats, Jelly Babies, FeedBurner and an iPhone wallpaper!
@spyjournal - Windows Home Server and SBS2003
@eMom - Facing the Empty Nest of My Blog and My Brand
@jdrohn74 - Ways To Knock Your Competitors Cold
@joetech - How to Replace a Broken Screen on a Casio Exilim Z60 Camera
@ColinWalker - Social media - when real life gets in the way
@Vultoor - Gata, Blogovat s-a incheiat (Romanian)
@45n5 - Affiliate Rapping
@markcoruk - We are on Reuters
@myrnaweinreich - Breath With Eckhark & Oprah On ‘A New Earth’ Chapter 4
@cmiddlebrook - 6 Months in Business - How Am I Doing?
@theunguru - What Tool Do You Use For Reading Newsgroups?
@ianternet - I dont do any sort of video blogging
@MartyJ - Query Types - Figuring out Keyword Intent
@sduffyphotos - How To: Multi-Shot Panoramic HDR Photos
@Wingnut - SEO helps everyone
@splitbrain - My Photography Equipment
@mrscrumley - Highlight Number 2: Atlanta Children’s Museum
@radix33 - Being Reciprocal
@deege - 15 beer factoids that will make you look smart
@shaicoggins - Sigma EX 30mm f1.4 DC HSM
@cdhinton - Mac vs PC
@PSPrint_Trish - Let Sleeping Husbands and Cats Lie
@CaseStevens - How To Write Great Email Follow Up Series
@micah - #1 Rule of Running From Zombies…Dont Look Back
@moneycoach - Good Friday: economics and cruxifixions
@deborahcarraro - The Everything Outside Nature Challenge
@megfowler - nine things
@DebNg - 35 Accessories Made from Recycled Materials
@remarkablogger - What Twitter Does for Me
@chris24 - Why Turning Off Comments Would Suck
@TwisterMc - Ubuntu is one Geeky OS
@MWGblog - Podcasting - It’s a Community Not an Industry
@sorenj - Even at the risk of being heroes….
@ikaronet - How To Replace Cable Television With Internet TV For Free: A Real Evidence
@trib - Real commitment or lipstick on a pig?
@amypalko - 4×4 Sources of Writing Inspiration: Unpopulated Places
@TomRoyce - Why Banks Need To Work Hard Communicating With Potential Foreclosures to Avoid Serious Damage To Homes
@uberaffiliate - The Mindset Of A Millionaire
@theotherdrummer - How to manage less by reducing more
@blantonious - Successful Social Media Marketing Requires Personal Involvement
@jenniferchait - 60 Eco-Friendly Ways to Celebrate Spring
@EverywhereTrip - The Great Ocean Road
@digitalfilipino - Creating Valuable Free Prizes to Boost Success Chances
@andrea_r - 25 New and different ways to use WordPressMU
@idesignstudios - 6 Phases of the Web Design & Development Process
@GrantGriffiths - The Pros and Cons of Working from Home — Revisited
@soultravelers3 - Kid’s View of Florence!
@waltw - Pairing Coffee and Cigars: Science or Serendipity?
@cashflowco - Are You Ready, World Math Day is Coming?
@GorillaSushi - New Media Attention Whore
@queenofkaos - Are You a Perpetual Student? WHAM Podcast #6
@sijt - Be the Jerry Springer of Blogging!
@aroberts - Best broadband deals in the UK Market
@fsechzer - How To Buy A Home Without A Real Estate Agent
@AGoodHusband - When a Husband Gets Praise and Compliments
@MenwithPens - 13.2 Easy Ways to Build a Thriving Blog Community
@mrinal_desai - Who is Your Chauffeur?
@Rachelskirts - Best Egg Hunt Ever
@tomjohnson1492 - 10 Alternate Tests for Evaluating Technical Writing Job Candidates — A List for Hiring Managers
@daveatkins - Marketing and Politics
@rachelpulido01 - Talk about Tuesday - Goals
@ScrapNancy - Why did you loan me money if you think I’m that dumb?
@RoadHog - Earthlings — A Discourse on Compassion
@palinode - five years and two months
@carterfsmith - Dear John, Where’s the Beef?

If you dont follow Darren on Twitter, please do. If you dont read his blog, you are missing one of the great blogs out there.

The Props:

Our community is teaching, learning, sharing and respecting.

Two people that I respect greatly, Chris Brogan and Gary Vaynerchuk, both had inspiring posts today. Each blew me away in different ways. The coolest thing? At the end of the day, Chris gave Gary props on his blog, and Gary returned the favor via Twitter.

If you dont follow Chris or Gary, please do. If you dont read Chris’ blog, or watch Gary’s videos (here or here), you are missing out on two of the nicest, smartest people out there.

The Dozens:

Our community is funny, witty, biting and silly.

Growing up, we played the Dozens. Basically a put down game, the idea was to “one up” the put down you received, by dropping a smarter, funnier, wittier put down. Its been called many things: Capping, Snaps, Getting Clowned, etc. but its the Dozens, dammit.

After another tweet from Jason Calacanis about his attempt to have the most followers on twitter, I finally was annoyed enough to tweet that I would donate $1 for each follower Jason lost to his favorite charity. Man, did I hit a hot button! There was a flurry of tweets, and retweets flying around. Some were really funny. Some were kinda silly.

What was the end result? Jason added about 75 new followers. Makes it even more funny.

If you havent unfollowed Jason, please do. If you do read Jason’s blog or watch him on qik or ustream, you are a lucky, lucky person. And, finally, my dogs are soooo much cuter than his.

(I do have a lot of respect for Jason and what he has accomplished. I just wish he understood the importance of community a bit more. Of course, if you tell him that I said something nice, I promise to send you links to the Tummyblr over and over.)

Twitter is an amazing reflection on people and human nature. You get what you give, and the biggest lesson that I have learned is this:

“Give And You Will Get; Take and You will Get Blogged and Tweeted about.”

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I remember several months ago I read an article about the rise of “presence based applications.” One of these applications allowed people to tell other what they were doing at any given moment. The trick was that you could use only 140 characters but you could update your presence stream from any device (SMS, web or IM).

I couldnt remember the name, but I was excited about the concept. I met with a friend of mine, Perry Evans, CEO of Local Matters who was asking for some search marketing help with their new product, Local Guides.

“How cool would it be if while people were checking out local areas, they could provide a constant update of what they were doing?” I excitedly told Perry.

Now Perry is one of the smartest people I know, and always indulged my enthusiasm.

“Interesting,” Perry replied. “What’s it called?”

“Tweeker.com I think.”

As he leaned over his computer and typed the in address, my excitement shifted from excitement to horror as the browser filled with a porn site.

“Damn it,” I sighed, “thats not it.”

Soon after, I found Twitter.com and slowly I started to learn that in many ways, Twitter is communications porn.

Over the months that I have been a Twitter user, they have begun to get more and more press, and as their user base increases (now well over 700,000) the conversation has shifted from Twitter as ambient intimacy or a conversation ecosystem to the question of use/value.

Sites that rank Twitter users have begun to pop up: Tweeterboard, Twitterholic and TwitDir, as have their proponents and detractors. These are all examples of how Twitter has moved from early adopter tech lovers to more of the mainstream.

As people begin to follow more and more people, Twitter becomes more and more voyeuristic communications porn. Conversations cant be followed, external applications (thank God Twitter has a robust API) are being used by the high volume users just to keep up. Chris Brogan put up a post today that outlined in pure numbers the volume of Twitter communication he processes. Robert Scoble outlines his social media use, include his Twitter use.

But Chris and Robert are not the only folks with large numbers of friends and followers, many others are the same. Twitter does a great job of increasing accessiblity, but as the noise increases, it seems that there will become a few classifications of Twitter users (and since my brain is stuck on the porn analogy, I apologize now):

1. “Playboy” Tweeters - This group is mass consumption. They have a large number of followers and friends (probably thousands), and while they say the read it all, usually its a picture…I mean tweet, that catches this group’s eye;
2. “Maxim” Tweeters - This group has a large number of followers and a few number of friends. Every post has a tinge of ego attached, and probably has little real value.
3. “Hooters” Tweeters - This group has a large number of friends and a few followers. Their hope is the more people they friend, then the more people will friend them back. They are truly unsure of the quality of the conversation, they just want as many people as possible to listen.
4. “Swinger” Tweeters - This group is truly a closed community. People are accepted in only if vetted by a current member. Members are free to communicate openly about anything and do.
5. “Prepubescent” Tweeters - This group has a small number of friends and followers. They tend to say that they are just “learning” about what Twitter is all about.

Up until now, I have been in group 4, preferring to only follow people I know, and capping the total number of people I follow at 100. Robert puts the number at around 300 even though he is well over 6,000. After a recent post about the value of comments versus response posts, which resulted in 4-5 tweets from friends that commented on the article, plus some interesting back and forth with Chris, I have begun to rethink this strategy. In addition, these two posts:

Clarence of Do You Know Clarence? wrote (with Chris Brogan): Keys to the Gates of (Social Media) where he wrote:

That pesky word ?friend? again. It messes up a lot of this experience. Because what if we consider you a friend, but don?t want to interact with you on Twitter or Facebook, or whatever? What if the things you like to Twitter about (your dog, your car, your dining habits) aren?t something I find interesting? I like YOU, but maybe don?t have much connection to your tweets. There are symbols here. If I drop following you, am I dropping you as a friend?

Alexander van Elsas wrote on his blog in his post “Twitter makes me a groupie, I’d rather be a friend:”

I can follow other people that don?t (or don?t want to) follow me. As a result of this I am reduced to a Groupie instead of a friend. I can listen to all their messages, but I can?t reply, add to them, or choose not to answer them. I follow a few people I don?t really know, but judging from the messages they twitter, i would like to interact with them on Twitter.

Moving forward, I have decided to break my online communications into three parts to make me more a part of the conversation than a closed participant:

1. This blog - Long Form articles, more focused on a topic that (hopefully) is interesting to people. Posts should come about once a week or so primarily focused on the concept of success through failure.
2. My Tumblog - which will be short form posts, videos, pictures and music. Much more random and a better picture of the things that make me laugh or think (which honestly are the only two things I could do all day, every day.
3. And finally, Twitter. Here it will be almost an interactive stream of consciousness. Most of my tweets will be immediate and ephemeral, and I will follow (most every one) who follows me (except the spammers).

Will it work for me? I dunno, but if I am going to become consumed and a consumer of the conversation through added value, I will have to move beyond the communication porn and into value-based interaction.

UPDATE: Many people have asked me which group they fall into, or which group I think I am in. I think there is no real “correct” answer. I do know that I think the “best” is a mixture of two, to become a “Swinging Playboy” if you will.