Techcrunch has an interesting post up right now about user Twitter Johng77536. Notice his stats here on the right, see anything strange? For one the account is only a few hours old (or at least just started posting) and he already has over 7000 followers. He is also not following anyone in return. So this is different than your classic Twitter Spam were a user follows thousands in the hopes of a few return followers. So how did he do it? Here are two scenarios to think about.

Just like the Sammy MySpace worm he simply may have some rogue code/script floating around out there. Getting a page to go viral with the Twitter community isn’t the most difficult thing. Perhaps this page has been invoked by all these followers and created the follow in the background, unannounced to the victim.

Scenario number two is more likely. Did you know some Twitter power users (your Jcals, Scobles, Loics etc) are given the option to auto follow anyone who follows them? Test it out, create a new Twitter account and follow Jason and Loic. You’ll notice they instantly return the follow. They may of figured out how to create this behavior for other users as well. All they would need to do is initiate the follow, get the return follow and then unfollow for the final step. They may even be able to trigger this action by bypassing the initial follow all together. In a sense creating followers without a paper trail (email notifications).

What are your thoughts?

Update:
Found a blog dedicated to Twitter Spam out there, check it out.

“Yea, we were basically going to outsource it to them.
And it was a big internet company…”
Evan Williams, Twitter Co Founder

Watch the above interview from TechCrunch with Twitter co founder Evan Williams. Is it pretty safe to say they were originally courted by Google for their search? Notice the reflection in his voice, then go read this post from Silicon Alley Insider. Seems like Google would have made a “perfect match” too, after all who better to monetize Twitter search then the big G themselves.

What Others Are Saying:

• VentureBeat
• ReadWriteWeb
• Fred Wilson

Twitter to buy Summize?

Why Twitter Should:

• To better distribute Twitter’s load balancing problems with Summize’s technology.
• To get some much needed good press.
• To inject get some fresh developer blood into the company.

Why Twitter Wont:

• If they were going to acquire any one, they would of picked up one of the many Twitter clients already.
• The way this rumor was released is highly suspect. Spin and press manipulation is pretty fun to watch.
• Right now, smart start ups are going to save not spend their VC war chest. When the economy further tanks this year they are going to need it.

What Others Are Saying:

• Venturebeat
• CenterNetworks
• TechCrunch

Tonight’s Deep Twit includes a special appearance by Eve Whale. Fail Whale’s girlfriend!

The tubes are still a flutter with the ongoing FriendFeed vs Twitter debate. As only an industry as egotistical as ours could do, the focus has now shifted to the amount of followers and subscriptions. Comparing the two services, some power users have noticed their FriendFeed network is building out much faster than it did on Twitter. Allen has a nice video up, it breaks down why they are seeing such high conversion of followers.

Let’s also not forget that when people like Calacanis or Scoble simply use the site they gain followers. All it takes is one of their many followers to “Like” or comment one of their postings. In some cases when they do this FriendFeed will broadcast their entry out to their friends as well. You see this in the form of “_____ (a friend of _____) posted…”. This feature alone drives tons of new subscriptions in a very viral fashion.

Myself, I’m at 863 followers on Twitter and 198 subscriptions on FriendFeed. About 1/4 of the network, what type of ratios are you seeing?

Oh and enjoy the new Deep Twit above, this one is titled “Fail Bird”.

Update: Just found Scoble’s post on participation, check out the stats he provided.

Oh just jump over the cliff already, before I could even write up my “FriendFeed, The Best Thing Online Since Porn” blog post, along comes yet another service. Once again we all lurch forward, sign up, rinse, friend request and repeat. Duncan has a nice wrap up with quotes from various folks today. Once again, someone registered Robert Scoble’s handle before he could. Finally, I was of course once again, too late to get that coveted first name only handle. :: shakes fist ::

There are however a few cool things about this Twitter of the week. Identi.ca for one is open source, that’s news good enough to make even Dave Winer happy. Like him, I’m also first hearing about the OpenMicroblogging concept today. Their website is so 94′ it makes me think of simpler times online.

Really these are all great things, perhaps the next step?

PS: Yippee?

I always keep an eye on what C.C. Chapman is up to, in the new media space his campaigns tend to offer innovative forms of user engagement. The latest, a Twittering Teddy is part of a campaign for Verizon FIOS. The teddy speaks recent tweets from it’s followers, all the while broadcasting to a Ustream channel. The above video takes us through the process surgery of creating this little guy.

The team plans to sell the bear on eBay with proceeds going to the Homeless Children’s Education Fund. I couldn’t resist asking how it would handle a fail whale. They assured me they have already worked out that potential issue. Personally, I’m hoping it involves the bear covering its face and shaking it’s head in shame.

If you read just ONE twitter post this year, make sure its this one! ok, and maybe this one too!

Be sure to check out the crazy Seesmic video comments and leave one for yourself, here is my entry:

Here are some other good ones:
Shel Israel

Scoble

Loic

Gabe

From my buddy Allen Stern over at CenterNetworks, I give you… Twitter Come Back!

Seeing how just about every other social network has its own song (Digg, Facebook etc) why not twitter? Notice the hat!

Please follow me on Twitter if you don’t already!

The Tweet Cloud service creates a nice little tag cloud of your Twitter activity. Interesting to see what words I use most, in this case it looks “going” and “time” are my most common terms. Makes sense when I think back to all the “going here…” and “time for….” twits I’ve sent out. Also looks like I reply to @spin the most and talk about Mahalo a lot (big surprise I know!).

What does your cloud say about you?

Twit was the worst on times, twit was the best of times

While reading some blogs this weekend I found the millionth or so great post on twitter, this one titled “My Essential Twitter Tools” from Jeremiah Owyang. It highlights how a service (that long left behind it’s cell phone roots) has become entrenched throughout our various connected devices and processes. Beyond our browsers and phones it has become aggregated, searched, and most importantly archived. No matter how or what your input is you are writing a story, an autobiography in fact.

Birth and Childhood

For many of us, our first twit was something like the above. Birth on Twitter is very much a “Hello World” experience. What was yours? Go back and see for yourself, just follow these simple steps:

1. View Your Profile

2. Make note of your total number of Twits

3. Divide your total twits by 20 (the amount of twits displayed on each page).

4. You should now have the page number (plus or minus 1) of your first twits. Visit http://twitter.com/YOURNAME?page=X replacing the red variables with proper info.

Your Greatest Hits

Hugh Macleod, truer words were never spoken.

The “favorites” section on Twitter is probably one of the most under used yet greatest features. Here you can save your favorite twits from friends and of course your own. In the river of Twitter data these are those few and precious gems that float by. I’ve started to use mine a lot more recently and find revisiting them is always good for a snicker or a grin. To tag a Twit as a favorite all you need to do is click the star icon, this is displayed at the end of each one.

Death (aka The Last Twit)

Marc Orchant’s final Twit, a week before his passing.

Imagine for a moment that tomorrow you step out in front of a bus and WHAMO. Mothers used to worry about clean underwear, perhaps now we have to think of clean status updates. If you are anything like me you will leave in your wake a handful of profiles and pages, scattered across the internet. Many of these services like Twitter are going to display your last impression for, well….forever? I suppose that really depends how long these services remain online and continue to archive this content for us. This of course opens up all other types of discussion on digital immortality we just have time to go into at the moment.

Publishing Your Life

Of course you are already doing this, some more than others and some perhaps a little too much. Twitter just happens to be an incredibly easy and accessible medium to write such a life story. While chances are no one is going to bind and stock your Twitter autobiography, if you write it someone just might read it. Now start thinking about things like “are my kids going to read this?”.

Featured Autobiographies above include:
Dave Winer, Eric Rice, and Robert Scoble