TweepMatch™

I love Twitter. In fact, I can barely imagine life without it nowadays. Although it is definitely a "Weapon of Mass Distraction" (which is how Obama recently described the iPad), it has also enriched my social life, not only on a virtual level. I've made new friends, keep up-to-date better with existing friends and even got a couple of paid assignments through Twitter. If you follow the right people for you, then it really can be a lot of fun. But how do you find those people?

Someone invented #FF (FollowFriday) for tweeps to recommend other tweeps to their followers, on a Friday. A good initiative, but I was starting to get annoyed at the huge lists of @names #FF people would post without giving a specific reason for following them. Besides that, my followers are a varied bunch, so usually, they won't all be interested in the same tweeps. Much more valuable is a recommendation to follow someone because a friend thinks you both match well. Yes, rather like matchmaking, but without the romantic intent.

So I say: let's go for quality rather than quantity and be more selective in our #FF's, making them into #TM's (TweepMatch) instead. If you TM two tweeps publicly, then other followers can still pick up on a recommendation if their interest is piqued. Meanwhile, your Twitter matchmaking will probably build a lot more valuable, long-lasting Twitter friendships than any 140 character long list of #FF's ever could. And on any day of the week too