Hmm…..! John Chow. Who is that? Don’t give me that crappy question. Almost everyone on Internet knows him well. At least most of the bloggers know him. Today he is regarded as one of the top and successful blogger out there. Anyways he need no introduction.
The topic here I am going to discuss is about John Chow’s recent Twitter Stunt and why I unfollowed him. Both of them are somehow related though. I believe many of you have already read his Twitter Stunt. He unfollowed 55,000 followers in one day. When he wrote the tweet about this incident i.e. unfollowing 55,000 people, I was online on Twitter and my first reaction was WTF! (sorry for bad language). What is John thinking? How can he do this? What is the reason behind this?
I believe many of you were in that unfollowed list. Well I was on that list. I do not regret being unfollowed by him. It does not matter. I am not a top gun whom he would follow. But this stunt by John really pissed me off.
Why am I pissed?
Here are the reasons
- I am pissed not because I lost a follower(useless follower anyways) but because it felt like he stabbed in my back. I am sorry if it seems a little too execrated to some of you but when someone promise to follow you back when you follow him/her, he/she need to keep the promise. OK forget that maybe I expected too much.
- But there is another reason too. I didn’t like the way John did this. He unfollowed 55,000 people in one day. That is too harsh. Isn’t it? If he wanted to unfollow he could have done it slowly. I know unfollowing 55,000 followers manually is not easy. He used some script and unfollowed all except a few (100) people. Maybe I can forgive him for this too.
- Wait! here is the strongest reason. If you have read his post you will know that the reason he unfollowed so many because he couldn’t really follow them. Actually no one can. He is already using Tweet Deck and Twitterfon which help anyone to organize twitter users into groups. So he should have no problem dealing with the matter of really following people he wants to. But he just blamed it on the softwares saying they are buggy and stuffs. He said he is using iPhone to do tweeting and it crashes due to heavy load of 55,000 followers. Well why isn’t he using his laptop, I think he has two of them. It is not like he is always on move that he need a iPhone to do tweeting. John gave his users some lame excuses. I hate it when people (no matter who) give lame excuses. I would surely like to hear directly from him what he think about my views.
So that’s it. Nope.
Below are few more reasons which made me unfollow John Chow (these reasons have nothing to do with his Twitter Stunt).
- It was useless for me to follow him as I was subscribed to his feeds and regularly visited his blog. I didn’t need to read his tweets.
- I had replied to him and DM him many times on twitter but never got any reply. Well this is a lame excuse from my side but I at least wanted a reply from him.
- I never found/got any quality tweet (anything of my use) from him. What is the use of following him then?
Now here is something for you all to think and answer.
What do you think about what John Chow did? Are you following him? What do you think about my views?
Before I close my post I have a advice or tip for John.
First of all John, I apologize if you feels bad but I didn’t like what you did. It was so unprofessional. I have a solution to your problem. First think of your aim – “Your aim was to follow people whom you really want to follow”. So the best and easiest solution to this is to make one more Twitter Account for personal use only. Follow the few people you want to and no need to ask people to follow you. You can use you iPhone too with no crashes.You can reply to them using this new account or from your old account (may be copy-pasting you tweet – it is up to you).
Note: I have though a lot before writing this article. So please apprecite it and give only useful comments. Only constructive critism please.
{ 35 comments… read them below or add one }
I unfollowed him because he was the one who followed me first which something automated soft or something ,and even I got 1 DM from him . When he followed me I thought how come he followed me? But now I know this stunt.So simply unfollowed him
.-= Bishwajeet´s last blog ..Sonam wrote on the wire of the group Love =-.
I think he followed people to get more follower, now I’m pretty sure most of people will continue to follow him. We can’t blame him, not so many top blogger follow you back. Did Copyblogger ever followed you? Did Darren Rowse Followed you? Did Yaro Starak followed you? I’m pretty sure they didn’t and will never follow you unless they know you well.
.-= Benjamin Cip´s last blog ..Become My Affiliate And Earn A 50% Commission! =-.
Honestly John Chow is what people make him, main reason I don’t talk about him on my blog is that he doesn’t impress me and he never has.
.-= Extreme John´s last blog ..Facebook Fan Page Mayhem =-.
So this is the latest news off the blogosphere. Hmn. For me, it was his own choice. My main rule in Twitter is that I follow people who interests me regardless of whether or not they follow me back. As for JC, it was his choice to finally do so. With your decision, maybe your point is just that JC did something wrong to you. But if you follow that principle, of unfollowing people for the reason that they did that to you, would that make the internet more or less unfriendly? Just my two cents.
.-= Liane YoungBlogger´s last blog ..In The World Full of Scam Products, Who Do You Trust? Don’t Get Mugged Online =-.
Well the reason is not only that. I did not unfollow him because he unfollowed me but because following him was of no more use for me. What I am unhappy about is his attitude. He unfollowed 55,000 people in an instant. He should have done it slowly. Also he gave a lame reason for this event. It was like he was justifying himself.
Read his post and you will understand what I want to communicate.
We can’t blame him for mass unfollowing. He has a good reason to.
.-= Ridiculous blogger´s last blog ..Payment from Blogitive =-.
Yes I can blame him. As a fellow blogger, I should point out his unprofessional conduct regarding Twitter. I have my good reasons too.
I just hope that he gets penalized for Mass Unfollowing. Anyways, I was expecting him to do it!
After all celebrities have to maintain their brand! But doing it so rudely was not expected.
.-= Tech-Freak Stuff´s last blog ..How to impress a Geek guy? (collection of valuable tips) =-.
Most of the people will continue to follow him because they are just lazy or don’t care about that, just like me. All those top bloggers don’t follow back, but at least they won’t follow in the beginning and unfollow in the end. But I have no comment on his action because I just don’t care about that.
Regards,
Lee
.-= Lee Ka Hoong´s last blog ..Make Money Online With Best Online Stock Trading =-.
I advised him one more way…If he really want the quality out of twitter a/c, And he don’t want all those mindless people, he can just delete that a/c and he can follow only ppl he wants na.
He is very smart and i can say over confident and he doesn’t respect follow bloggers. I don’t have words to tell any about that fellow
This is how he came till here
Just don’t follow him and unsubscribe to his blog
.-= TechZoomIn´s last blog ..Who is Reading your Blog? – Part 1 =-.
Well deleting his account would be to harsh. I read you comment on his blog and have given my support too. John need to care more about his followers.
Many people who follow him really do not use Twitter. They use it either once in a month or week. They are just dumb lazy people.
Let it be my friend. We are not trying to take revenge. What has happened has happened but you have put a right point here – He did it rudely.
I think he just had done this for getting more followers for his promotions and other things. Now he think that he has a lot of people so he unfollowed all of them and also made a big news with it. LOL this is so funny of him he was only telling on one of his site for twitter promotion that if you follow me then I will follow you back but after this thing he has decided to stop that site also.:)
.-= Sahil Kotak´s last blog ..Find Best Paying Affiliates Programs =-.
I agree with you. You know, I never followed big guns like john chow,shoemoney. They are a twitter spammers. They advertise more than providing the useful tips.
Most of his tweets are directed at his inner circle of family and friends. Unless you are in that circle or don’t check his page daily, following him doesn’t benefit you much.
.-= Blake @ props blog´s last blog ..3 Reasons Why You Should Love Free Anonymous Proxy Servers =-.
I totally agree with your statement. But my intention following them is to get more follower since they have bunch of followers. Now, I don’t really care too much about that.
I don’t see how unfollowing people is unprofessional at all. It’s Twitter. Who really cares?
What’s the point of following that many people? The whole point is that you “follow” them – you read their statuses and learn about them, and then develop a relationship with them. You can’t develop a relationship with 55,000 people over the Internet.
.-= Austin´s last blog ..A Quick Recap =-.
Yeap, they follow John becuase they just follow the trend.
Regards,
Lee
.-= Lee Ka Hoong´s last blog ..Upgrade to WordPress 2.8.4 to Prevent Bugs =-.
That’s harsh indeed ..I feel what you made is the right decision!
take it easy, someday you too will be like that ,so just chill
.-= Bishwajeet´s last blog ..kumar17vijay joined the group Cricket =-.
Do not worry I won’t be like that. I never give false promises like “follow me and I will follow back”.
lol
sorry i wont say anything as u dont want to…
Same here John, I am not impress at all. Whenever I watch his videos I can not find the sincerity in it, I don’t see a genuine person willing to help other bloggers. It seems like its all about the money everytime.
So yes pls contimue not to talk about him on your blog.
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..All About the V Thing =-.
Agent 001 I think you forgot one more reason to unfollow John C. Remember he has this Twitter Follow website that he promotes in his blog. On this website, everyone who registered there needs to follow everyone on the list and in return all will follow you back. If you registere but didn’t follow all then you will be banned!
John Chow should be banned from his own website because he contradicted his own rule.
.-= MichaelR´s last blog ..All About the V Thing =-.
When did he give promises like that? And if he did, why would you follow him? What’s the point?
.-= Austin´s last blog ..A Quick Recap =-.
Hmm…! Good question? Maybe I am wrong.
But let me ask you one question. I if I ask people to comment on my blog and I will comment on theirs. Are the people doing so,stupid? Isn’t there a point in their action?
Before you asked me the question you should have though of the answer yourself.
Is that still working? I didn’t even remembered about it. I didn’t sign-up for that. It was more a spammy method.
Well I replied in his post during that time and like most of his readers, I am pissed off on him doing that. Looking basically, its not just fair because its like having people follow him and all of a sudden he would unfollow people bcoz he knew he had a ton of followers already…
.-= Melvin´s last blog ..What I Learned In Wordcamp 09 =-.
Yup! I think he was actually being ignorant.
There can be tons of reasons why did he pull off such a “stunt”. Like he mite want to clean-up his account or he is too popular to be following so many people.
And i don’t even blame you for unfollowing him.
PaX
.-= PaX´s last blog ..Inspirational Quotes – 3 =-.
Hmm..! So popular people can do these things. Interesting, damn interesting. I can say nothing to this.
I think too many people put their hopes and dreams into John Chow. He is not blogging to help anyone else but himself. Yes, he gives away all this valuable information, but it’s not like we can’t find this info on our own with a little effort.
He followed all those folks and then un-followed to make himself appear to be a rock star, to have celebrity status. He’s already lost 2k followers since he did the big cut, it will be a matter of time when he is down to only 113 followers. I suspect the same will happen to his RSS and Face Book Fan page as well.
I only follow on or two of the common “pros” and John Chow has never been one of them. His reputation precedes him and it ain’t good.
I’m not mad at him in the least, like I said I never followed him anyway. He is a good read and a good source for ideas but he will not make any of us rich. That my friends is all up to us as individuals.
.-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..List of Online Blog Directories and Search Engines =-.
Well he won’t go down to that. I still visit his blog though. Anyways thanks for sharing your views.
I still need to read Jon article on why he unfollowed so many people but before that I must say all your points seems to be valid and its seems to be an excuse from his side. Since he was the one who keep asking people to follow all people who follows you…
And That point on tweetdeck is valid..I have almost 4K followers and there is no way I can keep up with everyone tweets..Thanks to Tweetdeck group feature.
.-= Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..[SEO]WordPress Post Duplication Issue With Comments =-.