I absolutely concur with you that a person following a larger group of people does not necessarily make him or her, a better listener, or the wiser. The “real juice” of the conversation as you correctly pointed out comes down to the “variety” of people involved. Absolutely! And this can occur in a setting of 1 to 1, 1 to many, or many to many.

In my example about Guy Kawasaki, I guess what I was trying to drive across was more from a marketer’s standpoint. Particularly towards connecting with customers. Where every customer, or potential customer - whether they demand the attention or not - deserves it. And Guy is able to pull this off with the help of social media tools like Twitter.

However, I am absolutely certain that if we are to use Dunbar’s number, then Guy’s interaction with the people he follows is reduced to merely satisfying the needs of customers, and not so much, the solidification of relationships. The metamorphosis I mentioned in the post I believe, will still continue to occur, but it will be experienced more on the part by the people Guy interacts with, rather than by Guy himself.

And talking about metamorphosis, having you share your thoughts on my blog has altered the dynamics and made me an even bigger admirer. I have been an avid follower of your work for some time, but now, I’m a Robin Good groupie! Which leads me to your offer, it’s a fantastic opportunity that I simply cannot refuse.

My only perplexity remains with the equation that makes someone following a huge number of people a better listener than someone who listens to a smaller but highly selected circle. I resist strongly that idea that the more people you listen to the more knowledgeable or aware you become of what is happening. I think it is in the “variety” and not in the “number” the real juice.

If would ever consider doing a guest post on social media, with the value you have been placing in this one, consider yourself invited to MasterNewMedia.

Keep it uP!

Point noted about version numbers. Personally, I have no problems with it, though I see your point about how it can get confounding for the uninitiated.

However, I can understand why the digerati would want classifications of the Web. A look at Tim O’ Reilly’s writings can be enlightening, like this article he wrote in 2005 for example:

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

What I do take issue with is when it is used out of context and that’s where it gets out of hand. Used in context however, I think version numbers adds some semblance of comprehension as we cross each stage of the Web’s evolution. It’s very much like how scientists have named each stage of the human evolutionary process, or stages of the formation of planets. Only, we are simplifying it with numbers.

But as you mentioned, the average online shopper won’t be losing sleep over these classifications. It’s just not worth their time to grapple with such gobbledegook. If this is your target market, calling the Web, the Web, is perfect.

I call the web just what it is: the web. People seem to get that.