While I'm not on the 'lists' like +Robert Scoble is, I have grappled with the pressure of having followers at all and the responsibility that comes with it. Once you reach outside your friends and family, there seems to be some sort of implied responsibility to what you do online. Companies and brands for sure need to be aware of this, but what happens when it occurs to people?

I see so many more influencer lists of people – not companies – that this conversation takes place daily hourly in my head. While "we" have collective power online, there is no denying that there are individuals that rein power/influence over much broader sets of people or ideas. While I have people in my social graph that I consider influencers / experts in a particular niche, they wouldn't have the same affect to the masses as say Robert does.

I'm often asked (usually multiple times a day) how my follower count got so high. I will hit a half million followers in Google+ in a few days. I actively work in my presence here for my own goals. But what do the followers GET me? If I don't know what the hell I'm doing – it only gets me recognition for the sake of followers. Robert knows what he's doing (it appears that way from the outside anyhow). He has a very specific reason and need to do what he does online and tactics to get the followers to meet his end game.

He's not corrupt. I suspect he's saying this totally tongue-in-cheek. I can tell he doesn't want what I call 'phantom followers' – the ones that follow you just because you are famous / internet famous. They don't add real value to Robert, and they don't add real value to me. I think Robert understands that because of his elevated status in the tech/startup/online world he has access to things and people WE don't. The gravity of the responsibility can be staggering. This I know to a lesser degree. People all want and expect things from you that you may not have designs on. It's difficult to get pulled in a million different directions by a half million people.

To be completely honest, I was on the fence about Robert in the past (I didn't dislike him, but I wasn't a fangirl either). NOW I get him, as much as one can from the outside anyhow.

He's not corrupt, he just has the weight of the totality of the social net on his shoulders 😉

Reshared post from +Robert Scoble

The corruption of Robert Scoble

This year at Davos I'm not working as hard as I did last year, when I interviewed 22 people live using audio. Last night I was spotted at the piano bar by +Bloomberg News's +Tom Keene who tweeted I don't just attend the piano bar, I sit up front and make the most of the experience: https://twitter.com/#!/tomkeene/status/162470374687252481

This is my fourth year to Davos, and was my first time to the Piano Bar (at a restaurant in a hotel, there's a great single-player piano guy, I might post video soon about that). The bar is the unofficial party spot for Davos. There's a rumor that Mick Jagger might show up tonight (he made it to several parties last night and was one of the major topics of conversations at the piano bar).

So, what did I learn last night? Dropbox CEO +Drew Houston could be a professional singer. I took video of him too, which he begged me not to share online. That might cost him.

Speaking of Tom, and getting to the point of my corruption, there's a shuttle system in Davos for attendees of the +World Economic Forum. Yesterday when I got in Tom was interviewing the CEO of China's biggest airlines.

Of course Apple and all the stories about mistreating workers and taking American jobs came up. http://www.techmeme.com/120126/p1#a120126p1 for more. The New York TImes is doing a series of wonderful reports. The CEO explained how China is in a different place than Western Countries and explained that they will go through the same process the west went through in the Industrial Revolution. +Tim Bray who works at Google and was one of the inventors of XML just made the same point. http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/01/25/Class-Struggle-in-China

I reminded Tom that not all American jobs were lost. I looked at the CEO and asked him how many planes his company owned. 350. Most were Boeing jets. I said that's the way we keep manufacturing jobs in America: we make things that people want. That said, making a 747 takes dramatically fewer people than making an iPhone (everyone should visit the Boeing factory up in Everett, Washington — it really is the best corporate tour in the world).

So why have I been corrupted? I used to be a much better user advocate than I have been lately. I used to be much more concerned about lockin, fairness, and all that. Lately I've become much more cynical.

I had hoped that social media would lead to a meritocracy, where the best ideas would float to the top like the ice cubes in my drinks last night were. But instead we've ended up in a world of suggested user lists and Klout and, at DLD, while Jack Dorsey, who runs Square and product at Twitter, was on stage, +David Kirkpatrick asked who had the most followers in the audience. Once again reminding us that this world has been corrupted (the number one person in the room was on the suggested user list over there, and was gifted hundreds of thousands of users).

So, I find myself cynical now. Corrupted, even, as I see tens of thousands of new followers here on Google+ because I've been added to this list again.

What does that cynicism and corruption lead to? I find myself far less sympathetic to Twitter than I would be otherwise. They messed up this world which could have been so great. Last night as I walked to dinner +Loic Le Meur and I noted that Twitter's engagement and following counts have slowed way down when compared to Facebook and Google+. If Twitter had built a meritocracy I would have been much more angry about what +Vic Gundotra is doing by putting Google+ results into Google's search engine.

+Dave Winer explains that this feature creep is creeping him out: http://scripting.com/stories/2012/01/23/weNeedAnExitFromGoogle.html I might have joined him if I wasn't corrupted. But instead I'm taking advantage of Google's reaction to its fear that Facebook is taking over the world. Not unfounded, I might add. Lots of conversations here in Europe about how powerful Facebook is. Some governments, like in Germany, are actually going to push laws (I think they are way overstepping, and if I hadn't been so corrupted I might actually care to speak out on Facebook's behalf) that really try to box Facebook's business model into a place where Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want to be boxed into.

Which brings me to Forbes top social media influencers list. http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/01/25/who-are-the-top-50-social-media-power-influencers/ I'm #6 they say.

In earlier years I worked a lot harder to get and stay on these lists. Lately I've been just, well, corrupted and more likely to go to the piano bar to have fun. That said, this morning I'm feeling, well, a bit guilty about my corruption so I'm asking myself "what should I do with this influence?" I think the answer might come later today when I meet with an NGO that's using technology to help get food distributed around the world. Maybe that will cleanse my soul. Detox my veins.

Or maybe I will just give into my corruption and show up at the Time Magazine party and look for some free food and drinks. It's fun work being corrupted, but someone has to do it!

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Who Are The Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers? – Forbes
Who are the most influential people in social media, the power influencers who have grasped what the social media revolution is all about? Here's a list of fifty people who have very substantial socia…

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