A long time ago, a clever man once said, “A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions” (the Roman Emperor Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius).

This may have been true in AD150 but is it still relevant in the always-on world of AD2009? These days a more common measure of worth is your connectivity. Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder) summed this up nicely when he said, “Your network your net worth.” One of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Top Life Tips is to, “go to more parties”. The express reason for this is to expand your network and expose yourself to more positive Black Swans.

A couple of weeks back we received an invite to a London networking event. The speakers were sold on the basis of the number of Twitter followers they had. This made me smile as it reminded me of recent conversations about the pressures and politics of maintaining relationships online.

Is the number of followers a true proxy for how valuable someone’s opinion is? I give you Britney Spears (903,274 followers).

My stepson Newton (694 Facebook friends) loves the fact he’s “more popular” than his younger brother Richard (389 Facebook friends). Phil (646 Facebook friends, 433 LinkedIn connections, 244 Twitter followers) and I (232 Facebook friends, 431 LinkedIn connections, 251 Twitter followers) regularly pull each other’s legs about how ‘popular’ we think we are.

To finish off this post, here’s a list of people we’ve either met or hear about regularly who are attached to the Internet scene here in London. We’ve used Twitter followers to help us measure their worth. Not sure old Marcus would agree with our methods but here you go anyway:

London’s 50 Most Networked Internet People by Twitter followers (As of 14th April 2009)

1. Jemima Kiss 10,568 followers http://twitter.com/jemimakiss

2. Mike Butcher 8.888 followers http://twitter.com/mikebutcher

3. Nick Donnelly 4,329 followers http://www.twitter.com/nickdonnelly

4. Paul Walsh 4,094 follower http://twitter.com/PaulWalsh

5. Paul Carr 3,551 followers http://twitter.com/paulcarr

6. Amanda Rose 3,436 followers http://twitter.com/amanda

7. Michelle Dewberry 3,360 followers http://twitter.com/michelledewbs

8. Hermoine Way 2,431 followers http://twitter.com/hermoineway

9. Sam Sethi 2,189 followers http://www.twitter.com/ssethi

10. Nick Halstead 1,847 followers http://twitter.com/nickhalstead

11. Michael Acton Smith 1,757 followers http://twitter.com/acton

12. Richard Morross 1,246 followers http://twitter.com/stewarttownsend

13. Mat Morrison 1,424 followers http://www.twitter.com/mediaczar

14. Nathan McDonald 1,362 followers http://twitter.com/nathanmcdonald

15. Joff Arnold 1,253 followers http://twitter.com/toodlepip

16. Joshua March 1252 followers http://twitter.com/joshuamarch

17. Stewart Townsend 1,246 followers http://twitter.com/stewarttownsend

18. Basheera Khan 1,098 followers http://twitter.com/bash

19. Andy McLoughlin 1,069 followers http://twitter.com/robertloch

20. Benjamin Ellis 1,007 followers http://twitter.com/BenjaminEllis

21. Sam Michel 1,004 followers http://twitter.com/toodlepip

22. Ben Way 936 followers http://twitter.com/benbpway

23. Sophie Cox 890 followers http://twitter.com/sophiecox

24. David Terrar 883 followers http://www.twitter.com/dt

25. Bindi Karia 803 followers http://twitter.com/bindik

26. Alex Hoye 765 followers http://www.twitter.com/alexhoye

27. Stephanie Robesky 756 followers http://twitter.com/nerdgirl

28. Luke Razzell 736 followers http://twitter.com/weaverluke

29. Bastian Lehmann 683 followers http://www.twitter.com/basti

30. Elizabeth Varley 660 followers http://twitter.com/evarley

31. Robert Loch 656 followers http://twitter.com/robertloch

32. Sokratis Papafloratos 652 followers http://twitter.com/sokratis

33. Nic Brisbourne 643 followers http://twitter.com/pmross

34. Mario Cacciottolo 629 followers http://twitter.com/mariosotm

35. Andrew Scott 626 followers https://twitter.com/andrewjscott

36. Danvers Baillieu 610 followers https://twitter.com/danversbaillieu

37. David Langer 602 followers https://twitter.com/langer

38. James Cherkoff 600 followers https://twitter.com/cherkoff

39. Nick Bell 593 followers https://twitter.com/nickbelluk

40. Barry Vitou 557 followers https://twitter.com/bazv

41. Steve Kennedy 499 followers https://twitter.com/stevekennedyuk

42. Chris Osborne 422 followers https://twitter.com/chrsoz

43. Emma Haslett 415 followers http://www.twitter.com/emmahaslett

44. Fabio De Bernardi 399 followers https://twitter.com/fabiodebe

45. Meriem Aissaoui 375 followers http://twitter.com/mernas

46. Robin Klein 375 followers http://twitter.com/robinklein

47. Dug Falby 349 followers http://twitter.com/dug

48. Nikhil Shah 344 followers http://www.twitter.com/nikhilshah

49. Stephanie Bouchet 328 followers http://twitter.com/rougefrog

50. Paul Mackenzie Ross 325 followers http://twitter.com/pmross

The master version of  this list appears on the Snagsta website. View it here to share it with your nearest and dearest.

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But more importantly, back to the river. There is no bigger river than the river of Twitter. Thanks to my Facebook status updates several people have asked me recently what Twitter is. In a way it’s a bit like micro-blogging – here’s a commoncraft clip that explains it a lot better than I can. And here’s another good link.

It’s great if you’ve mastered continuous partial attention but you have to pick who you follow carefully as you can be inundated with the most trivial facts about people’s lives (Sorry Chris, couldn’t resist… my dad also loves Indiana Jones).

The Twitter signal-to-noise ratio is terrible though. The highly regarded Nassim Nicholas Taleb has strong views on this. He doesn’t read newspapers for this very reason.

On the flipside, Nic Brisbourne reminded me that ‘when you are in the business of trying to predict where the hype will be in 12-24 months then [you] don’t have the luxury of ignoring the breaking news.’ And I have to admit, amongst the froth, Twitter certainly has delivered some timely nuggets that have really helped us as we strive to stay ahead of the curve. Or, in Alex’s case, just behind.

Here’s a useful list by Paul Walsh that includes some tips for new users.

Most people will only spend a few seconds reviewing your Twitter page before deciding whether to follow you or not. The more followers they have, the less time they’re likely to spend. So, these tips should help increase the chances of people following you.

1. Fill in the bio. Include a few words that describe you. Try to make it punchy.

2. Link to a Web page that’s relevant, preferably a blog or biog.

3. Don’t follow everyone you find interesting at once. Wait for some to reciprocate or you’ll look like ‘billy no mates’.

4. Using a company name as your screen name is ok for some people. Loren Feldman and Mike Arrington are amongst the ‘exception to the rule’ category. I personally prefer to follow people, not companies.

5. Be honest, open and above all, be yourself.

6. Be patient. You won’t build relationships or feel the community spirit over night. It takes a little getting used to. Use twitter to have conversations with people for at least a few weeks before forming an opinion.

7. If you’re unsure whether to publish a comment, publish it. Ok, that’s probably not the best tip, but it’s what I do all the time. Sometimes it doesn’t work in my favour but mostly it does as people know that what they see is the real me.

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