I have been a reader of Robert Scoble for almost as long as I have been using an RSS feed reader. Sure there have been a couple of times where his noise level got to be too much and I unsubscribed from his main feed but at some point he would usually re-engage me so I would re-subscribe.

This loyalty - for a lack of a better word - was because Robert for better or worse could always get a good conversation going and when he stated using things like Twitter and FriendFeed I always made sure that he was one of the people that I friended regardless of whether he returned the favor.

Loyalty though only goes so far and when he started getting carried away with his Qik video posts on Twitter it was time to take a personal stand against the noise level and I unsubbed from him on Twitter. Now because FriendFeed was also pulling in his Twitter feed I ended up unsubbing from him there as well.

With things a little more under control on the noise level front I could get back to enjoying his now slower posting on his blog rather than having to face the I’m on Qik - come chat with me messages every 5 minutes. Then he has to go and throw a monkey wrench into my piece and quiet.

How did he do this?

Well in and amongst my morning friending notifications was one from FriendFeed that I had been friended by one Robert Scoble. Arrgggggg .

Now I had a quandary on my hands. Do I take that step past just seeing his posts on FriendFeed via other friends on the service and friend him or do I continue to enjoy my peace and quiet. Not to mention the fact that one has to wonder these days when they get such a notification from Robert if it is just because of his recent philosophy to follow everyone or if in fact he was doing it because you are writing stuff that seriously engages him.

Don’t get me wrong I like Robert and he is one of the tech people that I would really like to meet in real life (not that that is likely to happen) but really Robert am I just another notch in your philosophy of follow everyone or am I actually adding something of value to the rarified circle you travel through? Is my voice and thoughts just getting blended in with the thousands of other voices that clamor for your attention or have I sparked a thought or conversation around the dinner table?

Where once I was comfortable in my decision to just read you blog now I have to figure out if I want to step back into that noise chamber that follows you around.

Thanks a lot Robert

Conversation Tags: Robert Scoble, Twitter, FriendFeed, friending, social networks