(Asymmetrically) follow me, I'm also lost.....

I was reading James Governor's post on Asymmetrical Follow (ie in a Asymmetric network there is not symmetry between people you link to, and those linking to you) as a Web 2.0 pattern, when I saw this transcript:

There are those that would would say their is something “wrong” with Asymmetrical Follow, which I would argue is just a function of the power laws you see in any community. For example, yesterday Benjamin Ellis (@bmje) said:

“@timoreilly @monkchips Asymmetric follow is a hack in social software to enable ‘relationships’ to scale. It is broadcast, not conversation”

Pretty much the worst insult you can lay at the door of something Web 2.0 is that its not “conversational”. Ouch- the Cluetrain dog whistle.

Tim’s response was measured.

“@bmje Not so. I follow 400; am followed by 16,000. But I respond to lots of people (like you) who I didn’t know before. Not just broadcast.”

I liked the comment about the Cluetrain dog whistle, but that doesn't mean @bmje (Ben Ellis) was wrong! Anyway, James carries on with:

That’s the point see. Asymmetrical Follow doesn’t mean broadcast, its just a conversation in which one node has more connections, and likely can’t personally scale to manage them all. Opt in or opt out. You can address the root nodes. Or to put it more eloquently, back to @bmje:

@timoreilly the wonderful power off twitter and good people - its asymmetry is only partial, due to the power of @’s

At the risk of pouring oil on troubled waters, we need to get over that Cluetrain dogma whistle thingy...

Twitter is an asymmetrically configured network in that if I follow (link) to you, you don't have to follow back (hence Asymmetric follow capability). More specifically, it is a Publish/Subscribe network (or Pub/Sub). You publish, If I subscribe (link / follow) to you I get your message. Just because I subscribe to you, does not mean you have to reciprocate - that's the asymmetry bit.

And this is a broadcast network configuration pure and simple when the asymmetry is very large - Tim O'Reilly's 16,000 connections for example get the same message when he hits send - that's a broadcast system.

However, the @ function (ability to contact someone who is not connected to you) gives it a backpath as noted above - i.e. makes it a form of interactive broadcast network. It's still not symmetric as the link is non-permanent. (In fact all the Web 2.0 stalwarts - Facebook, Linked in etc - are Symmetric networks, does this actually make Twitter a post Web 2.0 play? - or just think of it as an email Group Server with colour pictures )

Now this is not bad news, its good news - it means Twitter is a proper Comms network - which means that it will scale far better and more efficiently than Facebook etc as a commsnet, and be more flexible in what it can do.

And as @bmje notes in his blog response to James' post, Conversations don't scale . Just ask the BBC about keeping up with comments on their blogs!

Which is why its a better choice for an Open Connect architecture than a symmetrical system

Update - I note that a few people have voted this post on 1 star, which usually means that the message is unwelcome (ie we have pricked the zeitgeist bubble early). So, before you splutter on your Kool Aid, go read this post about the many Social Nets that have failed to date.