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For me, I get to interact with people I know by reputation but would probably never meet and would probably not know what to say if I did meet them.
I suspect one of the reasons Twitter has taken off in journalistic environments is that, in writing, you get a lot of people who are verbose and attention-driven behind a keyboard but normal to retiring in real life. I’m on the extreme end of the spectrum, but I doubt I’m alone on it.
No. You should follow the people who you want to follow. It’s worth being egalitarian within those parameters, but reasonable people should assume that, given the nature of the medium, no one should feel obligated to follow you and thus water down their own use of the form.
Shorter: my only strong opinion on how to behave in the Twitter environment is: be nice, and that includes being tolerant of the ways in which other people choose to use it.
