I remember the early days of Twitter, when the people you followed actually meant something to you. When your “followers” were really your friends. When it was appropriate to Tweet if anybody wanted to grab lunch. Early adopters hoped that it would become popular so that everybody could be connected like we were in the beginning.

The problem with social networks, unfortunately, is that sometimes the illusion of appearing “social” is more important than the real value of human connections. The number of people following you became a badge of honor, if not legitimacy. The MySpacing of Twitter began early in this regard.

Some kind of tide has turned lately, making things even worse. I don’t know what it is, but I’m seeing more and more people on Twitter who are only interested in using it as a marketing channel. They follow you in the hopes you follow them, and thus hear their pitches for quick bucks, diggs, or soft porn.

Thanks, Twitterweb, but no thanks. I’ll follow people I know or respect. No more automatic reciprocation. When I get a new follower on Twitter, the first thing I do is read all of their recent tweets. I’ll follow only if I see something worth following; no automatic friend-adding here.

Sadly, I see that I’m in the minority. I don’t think Twitter will recover from this shift to cheap self-advertising. It has gone from personal to pedestrian. All Biz Stone needs to do now is add the ability to play music whenever somebody views your profile, and the transformation into MySpacery will be complete.