I recently joined Twitter (my username, as always: xsyn), a micro-blogging service which many of you probably know well by now.

The twittersphere interests me in a number of ways:

1. Different people use the medium in different ways (an instant messenger system, personal branding, geo-locating etc), it almost feels like each person has a primary use preference through which they output into their networks.

2. Locally (South Africa), the twittersphere is comprised of distinct groupings of individuals: 1. Geeks 2. Designers (which I've now labelled aesthetic geeks - in my mind) 3. Bloggers 4. Journalists

I'd like to make an important caveat here, there are individuals outside of these influences, however these are the predominant types.

3. From what I can ascertain from various social networks, who recurse into each other from various social technologies (mailing lists, Facebook etc.)

Again with exceptions, and with the sub-conscious thought banging at the back of my mind that these may simply be the contexts that my own reality tunnels have been adapted to, and as such it's quite likely that I may be seeing similar networks. I'm happy to leave this one open for discussion.

4. This is the point that got me writing this post: I have no idea how a) data travels in the twittersphere b) on what criteria people follow other people.

After a little editing I'm going to talk about b) first due to recent information (strangely enough from Twitter).