Admit or not, we all have our little secret methods of deciding whether to follow someone on Twitter or not. Luckily, the guys over at TechCrunch shed some light on the Golden Ratio theory of following users on Twitter.

The Golden Ratio, or the followers versus following theory is something that most Twitter power users seem to use. When you first join Twitter, you don’t look twice into the details of the person who is following you. But after your followers number increases, things tend to change.

The Twitter timeline tends to get a little polluted with irrelevant tweets after you have more than one or two hundred followers. Not everything in your stream is relevant to you anymore and a filtering system must come into place. That’s where the Golden Ratio theory becomes handy.

Dirty little secrets: deciding who to follow on Twitter might not be the easiest thing to do, but the Golden Ratio method could really help. | Photo: Andy Beez on Flickr

The Golden Ratio method is quite simple: the less people someone follows and the more people are following that person, the user becomes more follow-worthy.

Even though it might not sound as the fairest method to judge whether to follow someone or not, this makes it quite easy to find out which users have the best signal to noise ratio.

So, if the number of followers a user has is greater than the number of people that certain user is following, the TechCrunch guys say that it could be worth clicking through that person’s profile.

But if a person follows significantly more people than the number of users it is followed by, then you should probably think twice before following back.

Do you use the Golden Ratio method to decide which users are worthy of following on Twitter or you have some other mechanism of selecting who you follow back? Sound off in the comments.

Send tweets, good or bad, without fear of being caught with new website- Tweet from Below.

The website is straightforward- simply type in what you want to say and press send. These will the be sent to Tweet From Below’s personal Twitter account, and if using an @ reply, the receiver. No login is required, so no-one will know it was you who sent the tweet.

Although we all sometimes have things we want to get off our chest without people having to know it was you, this is possibly a hotbed of disaster for Twitter, especially if users of the site send @ replies. People leaving bad comments about people they may not necessarily know or spreading falsehoods about a user could lead to lawsuits for both Twitter and the individual who wrote the comment in the first place, as looking at Tweet from Below’s T&C’s, it’s not as anonymous as you’d think:

“Just remember: what you do on TFA/TFB may be anonymous, but we do log your IP address and other identifying information. Don’t make us use it! This site is not meant for harrassment, threats, pornography, crime or other questionable activity, and we will happily ban users who use it questionably or turn their information over to the appropriate authorities.”

Although this site may be meant to be used for just saying what needs to be said, the bad comments will probably be pouring onto Twitter at high speed. This will not end well.

Twitter’s attempt to trademark the word Tweet has been rejected.

As Twitter Bulletin mentioned a few months ago, Twitter submitted an application to the US patent and trademark office in order to claim the word, which describes the action of sending a 140 word message to followers.

It is claimed that the application didn’t go through due to three other firms- TweetMarks, Cotweet and Tweetphoto- all who also use the word and therefore may cause confusion.

However in a recent post on Twitter’s official blog, co-founder Biz Stone stressed that despite Twitter attempting to trademark use of the word, even if the trademark had been granted, they would not stop have stopped applications such as Tweetie and TweetDeck from using the word.

He added: “We have applied to trademark tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of ‘going after’ the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter… However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important”

Although this comes as a blow for the site, it’s not all bad news. Even without the trademark, the word Tweet has successfully made it’s way into the Associated Press’s style guide and into Australia’s Macquarie dictionary, as well as being globally connected to Twitter by users anyway.

Over the last few days there has been mounting confusion over the legality of using the word “tweet” as Twitter took action against certain third parties who where using the term in their applications, but it seems now the issue has been clarified via Twitter’s own Biz Stone over on the official blog, and the company don’t have a big an issue with third parties using the term as first thought:

“We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.”

So it’s pretty straightforward, if you use the term “tweet” in a negative, damaging way Twitter will not be pleased, but beyond that everything is sweet. Just don’t forget, Tweet™.