Just to clarify: I have no objection to anyone having personal limits on the number of people they follow on Twitter – only imposing that on others. Here are some of the many reasons people set limits. I’d love to know yours.
“I limit who I follow on Twitter because otherwise I struggle to keep track of conversations and I find a busy feed too distracting. I know I can use an app like Tweetdeck (which I love) to filter and group followers which would enable me to read what’s ‘important’ and discard/ignore what’s not, but given I frequently access Twitter on my mobile phone, that doesn’t solve the problem of being overwhelmed by thousands of people’s tweets.
“However, even though I have a self-imposed limit of <90 people I follow, I still try to maintain friendly/polite interactions with those that follow me; I feel it’s sort of arrogant and rude not to. An app like Tweetdeck is brilliantly enabling in this regard, alerting me whenever someone speaks to/about me even if I’m not following them. When I can, I do respond to @ replies to me, but usually via a DM: I don’t want my own Twitter stream to be noisy or filled with hundreds of @ replies to my followers – which it would be if I replied to everyone who communicates with me…
“This is, perhaps, a clumsy and inconsistent way to interact on Twitter, but it’s allowed me to continue to use the service without being overwhelmed, and it also means I can try to maintain communication with others without being rude – which I think it is easy to become, in this medium…”
And from the Twittersphere:
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martinwake: @paulbradshaw re: limiting the people I follow: no, but every time I follow someone new this year I’m unsubscribing from an rss feed…Jan 19, 2009 10:36 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
matwilcox: @paulbradshaw yes, I do limit. Try to keep it relevant to my world and business. If you do that it really is helpful.Jan 19, 2009 10:23 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
sammenter: @paulbradshaw I’d like groups, so i could look at friends if busy, others if i had more time. -
Dramagirl: @paulbradshaw Yes. Still want ‘meaningful/useful’ contact not randoms or numbers for the sake of it. Getting harder to choose!Jan 19, 2009 07:58 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
Shimacat: @paulbradshaw yes, I limit – I like to feel as if I can follow train of thought from those I follow. Too many + thread is lost.Jan 19, 2009 07:55 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
rapella: @paulbradshaw the matrix would be time > interest > quantity (followers)Jan 19, 2009 07:44 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
leifkendall: @paulbradshaw I’ve noticed that following lots of people makes it hard to actually follow them, so i wouldn’t follow thousandsJan 19, 2009 07:39 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
BenLaMothe: @paulbradshaw Keeping up with a ton of different Twitter accounts is extremely challenging for me. Will follow ppl I feel I will learn from.Jan 19, 2009 07:38 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
michaelandrewx: @paulbradshaw I do, because otherwise I cant keep up with my timelineJan 19, 2009 07:32 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
drewb: @paulbradshaw mine is 300. It works really well and when i go over the limit, Twitter doesnt work do good for me (like now 🙂Jan 19, 2009 07:27 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
gazoombo: @paulbradshaw still, it’s hard, because the scope of my interest is wide, and many have to be followed to get the context for conversations -
gazoombo: @paulbradshaw yes, I try to keep the signal / noise ratio a high as possible. I don’t have _time_ to read everything from everyone.
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garymarshall: @paulbradshaw not so far, but I don’t follow huge numbers. That said, I’d like to create contact groups to filter it a bit.Jan 19, 2009 07:21 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
jamesdoc: @paulbradshaw 1) Follow the people you know, 2) Follow the people you are interesting in, 3) Don’t follow a news site that has an RSS feed!Jan 19, 2009 07:20 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
emmaboon: @paulbradshaw I limit the number of people I follow because I prefer quality to quantity!Jan 19, 2009 07:18 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet
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star_one: @paulbradshaw – not limited by numbers, but i do limit by ‘relationship’.Jan 19, 2009 07:16 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
thoroughlygood: @paulbradshaw I’m considering limiting the number I follow just because I’m noticing I’d like to only hear from a select few ..awful I know.Jan 19, 2009 07:16 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet -
Editer: @paulbradshaw I follow some hi-volume Tweeps, and I could not find time for more. Lo-volume Tweeps are welcome, but few of them interest me.Jan 19, 2009 07:16 PM GMT · Reply · View Tweet
Online Journalism Blog 
Its always best to limit the number of people you follow. Otherwise you’ll have so much that you won’t be able to keep track of them, or even manage your twitter account. Some people are just not worth following.
I would suggest that if a reporter is using twitter than limiting the number of people you follow would be counter productive.
would you stop writing numbers in a contacts book if you felt you had enough already?
A little late to this post – For the last few months I’ve tried to limit the new people I follow to those of a new media/journalism stripe. And no doubt Tweetdeck is an invaluable tool regardless how many people you follow. Now I need to follow through on un-following people who don’t update and those that only offer noise. Just haven’t figured out a quick easy way to identify those people.
I have no evidence to back me up but I swear my followers increase at a faster rate the more followers I block. Presumably just as your blog traffic increases the more defined your community, so with Twitter.