This is the first of my Twitter #followfriday posts. This week's recommendations are for the Twitter users I find most interesting to follow for information relating to business, media, and New Zealand and world news.
The origins of #followfriday are explained in my "Twitter Follow Friday" post. The reason I am posting my recommendations here, and not on Twitter itself are simple - I believe that recommendations should be something people can choose to read for themselves, instead of having them pushed at them in their tweet stream. Besides, I want more than 140 characters to tell you who I recommend, and why 
Business, Political & Financial News
New Zealand centric:
Policial News, New Zealand:
International:
This list is not exclusive and there are other worthy folk to follow on Twitter. However, I find each of the above to be engaging, easy reading, and very informative. Some are straight-out news, others, such as @radiowammo, @bernardchickey and @3business have mastered the art of two-way conversation and are my top picks of the week.
Have you found others you want to recommend to me?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or jump to the comment form to add your thoughts }
I see your point but pushing things into the Twitter stream and having to limit to 140 characters are what I see as being the spirit of Twitter.
On the other hand, you will have to plug your article by tweeting on it so you are still pushing it into the Twitter stream - just as a link.
(If it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, I'm just giving two possible viewpoints.)
What I feel is wrong with #followfriday - and what this method partially addresses by categorisation - is that no indication is generally given to whom the people concerned are or why they should be followed. ("Won't it be exciting to find out" tends to get a "no" from me - I like to know exactly what's happening and don't like surprises.)
I agree with both of your points
I like the #followfriday concept but find I ignore the tweets that are simply a list of usernames with no qualification. They can create a lot of noise in the Twitter stream. The other issue, for me, is that differing time zones result in #$followfriday tweets coming in over an extended period. What is relevant to followers in, say, New Zealand is not necessarily relevant to followers in the US, and vice versa.
I see it kind of like an introduction. If I was introducing you as a guest speaker I wouldn't just say your name. But, whether anyone else likes this approach remains to be seen
I see no reason that your approach should not work - Twitter users are used to following links so I would say that anyone interested in #followfriday would be as likely to follow your external link as to follow the a Twitter user ID - which is just another link.
You are adding an extra step for people to take, but value-adding to the process by giving additional information.
I have yet to formulate my own policy on this but am tending towards only providing one name per update (per my follow-u-tron) but maybe having more than one update in a day.
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