so today, i sent a tweet-out (boy i should copyright that term) to ask in your honest opinion the people that are must-follows… it had a good response and so i thought that i would post the results here:-
** Merlin Mann (hotdogsladies)
** Kevin Rose (kevinrose)
** Alex Albrecht (alexalbrecht)
** Jeff Cannata (jeffcannata)
** Dan Trachtenberg (dannytrs)
** Michael Arrington (techcrunch)
** Paul Boag (boagworld)
** Jeffrey Zeldman (zeldman)
** Brightkite (brightkite)
** Paul Lomax (paullomax)
** James Whatley (whatleydude)
** Ryan Carson (ryancarson)
** London Events (londonevents)
** eChuckles (echuckles)
interesting that the top results kind of reflected those of the most popular twitter users published here, which makes sense if you think about it. it did get me to thinking about people that you should be following in different fields depending on your interests. then there’s the whole issue of wanting to follow someone because you respect their work even though they may send more personal tweets that tweets with gems of knowledge.
so the conclusion that i came to is that i’m going to get a study squat on and put together a list of twitterati that you need to be following under each categories. the categories that i have so far are industry, design, development, entrepreneurs and social media. please leave a comment below if there’s someone you’d like to be considered for the list or other categories you’d be interested in seeing. this is for you after all! 
p.s. thanks to all you lovely folks that said me, but let’s face it you’re going to be biased as you were following me in the first place. i still love you more for it though, you’re the best!!
Mel says:
oh shoot, i should probably add my own personal favourites…
** Elliot Jay Stocks (elliotjaystocks)
** Tara Hunt (missrogue)
** Vero Pepperrell (vero)
** Blaine Cook (blaine)
** Matt Mullenweg (photomatt)
** Anne Holden (adholden)
** Joe Stump (joestump)
** David Prager (dlprager)
** Kathy Sierra (kathysierra)
** Jim Coudal (coudal)
** Brendan Dawes (brendandawes)
oh do you know what, this could go on forever…. just look at following on my twitter account
September 10, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Gav says:
Great list pet, I’m gonna add me some more Twitterfolk!
September 10, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Chris Rowe says:
Hey Mel,
Was looking through the list but Jeff Cantana doens’t exist. Googled him and your site pops up top of the listing already! Google’s indexed it within about 3 mins. Must be cause it’s so popular
Who is this Jeff Cantana person?
Chris x
September 10, 2008 at 1:20 pm
randy says:
ijustine is always fun, but I guess she fits under the social category.
September 10, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Bruno Miranda says:
Great list, also @brupm
September 10, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Mel says:
@Chris Rowe – totally my bad… really sorry… should have been Jeff Cannata (Totally Rad Show)… Good to see the Google bots showing some love though
September 10, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Chatmandu says:
Interesting little list although @zappos is always good value… That said maybe I should have responded to the poll :p
September 10, 2008 at 1:34 pm
James Whatley says:
Utterly random and yet totally humbled to appear on your list…
Explains the new surge in followers!
Big love,
@Whatleydude
September 10, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Rick Hurst says:
I tend to follow mainly people i’ve actually met, or people who work in my industry, friends and friends of friends etc. – i’m not bothered about following so-called “A listers” (unless I know them!), or people who don’t follow me – it’s a much more a personal thing for me
September 10, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Paul Downey says:
It’s an interesting conclusion that your tweet-out (like it!) supported the ‘A’ listers. It’s one which makes me sad. I’m think I’m coming from a diminishing old school form of twitterer. As a ‘twit’ I don’t like noisy or chatty twerps, which covers most of the recommended list cf: http://blog.whatfettle.com/2008/01/05/are-you-a-twitter-twit-or-a-twerp/
For me, people you “must” follow are primarily those you know and care about and people who care about you as an member of their audience, and not just promoting themselves or using Twitter as ephemeral chat channel, @’ing all and sundry. As a result I follow two of the suggested list, but mainly because I’ve met them, and they know me!
Anyway, thanks for writing this up, and you might like to know I came across your post because someone happened to mentioned “@psd” in reply to your question, maybe an implicit vote
and it popped up on my ego search: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%40psd and I decided to follow you, well at least until you become too noisy 
September 10, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Mel says:
thanks to everyone for their comments – Rick and Paul, i would have to say that i agree which is why i only follow 100 – 120 at max… i try and keep the conversations that i’m listening to from friends or from those that i feel i can learn from (Kathy Sierra) for example.
i don’t want you to think that i’m only supporting the big names – people with a small design agency for example are likely to have something interesting to say as someone who works for a big famous design agency. the list of people that i added myself i would consider friends or people that i would like to learn from. i would admit that not all of these are local, but that’s the beauty for me… i get to stay in touch with my friends even though they’re the other side of the pond
September 10, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Sam says:
for the UK Apple heads and Social Media followers, how about following me in Bristol at: http://www.twitter.com/samdownie yep, I’m at various conferences and expo’s such as Macworld, SXSW, MacExpo, Sounds-Expo, Music LIVE and I’m I musician too
so come and follow me!
@samdownie
@bristolsounds (my Bristol Sounds tweet-feed)
p.s. launched a new music site: http://www.bristol-sounds.com
Thanks Mel, you always rock x
September 10, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Paul Lomax says:
Aaah, that explains why I suddenly got a ton of follows today!
I’d better start twittering again – I’ve been slack since the GTalk bot stopped working…
September 10, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Mel says:
Paul – your GTalk bot isn’t working? Kick it… kick it now I tell you!
September 17, 2008 at 6:50 am