I have never been able to come up with a good idea why anyone would want to protect their updates on twitter. In fact, I equate this to the same BS as requiring me to register before I can leave a comment on a blog. It would actually be fun to do a survey to see if the same people who protect their updates on twitter also require commenters to register on their blogs. But I digress.

This box gets under my skin.

Some of the reasons I have received for protecting updates.

• I don’t want my clients to know what I am saying on twitter. That is a joke right. Do you go out in public? Do you require people to send in a request to you before they can hear what you say in public? If you are concerned that someone might hear something you don’t want them to hear on twitter, then don’t say it. D’oh!!
• I don’t want people I know to see what I am saying on twitter. See previous paragraph. It really is simple, don’t say something on twitter you don’t want the world to know.
• I don’t want other businesses or my competitors to know what I am saying on twitter. What, you have a problem with being transparent? Other business and competitors are going to know what you are doing most of the time before you do. Especially if they are smart. You need to promote your business online and twitter is a great way to do it.
• I want to keep my tweets private. That has to be one of the dumbest reasons I have seen. If you want to keep your tweets private, don’t waste my time or others. Stay off of twitter.
• To reduce spam followers. Of all the reasons, this might be the best one. However, I am not convinced. I do not auto follow any follower on my @grantgriffiths account. In fact, I get an email whenever I get a new follower. I also check each one and if they are spammers, I block. I use the best twitter twammer filter available, me. And besides, just because they follow you doesn’t mean you have to follow them back. If you don’t follow back, you won’t get their spam anyway. Protecting agains spam followers still, in my humble opinion is not a good enough reason to protect your updates.

Twitter Poll

I did a very unscientific poll yesterday to see what some of you might say about this question.

And here are the results of the poll:

The results seemed to support my position. As I said, this was an unscientific poll, but it does give some idea of how people might lean on a more official survey or poll.

Final Thoughts

It might appear I am being a bit harsh. And I am. Twitter is a conversation tool. A tool to build a community. There is no reason to put up road blocks like requiring someone to request they be allowed to see what you are doing on twitter. And quite frankly, no one is so important they need to protect their updates.

Now if this post does not generate some comments from all of you, I must be doing something wrong. Jump in and either tell me I am completely full of it or tell me you agree. Let’s keep the conversation going.