What’s up with selling off your friends? A new way to make money?

Andrew Baron, co-founder of the pioneering online video series Rocketboom, has put his Twitter account up for sale on eBay. The latest report in BusinessWeek has bidders upping the price of his account to more than $1,500. But is it a viable business model? Probably not.

The point here is that Baron is selling because, according to the report, “…he was feeling bored with it and ambivalent about the technology,” and apparently, “Most ‘twitterings’ are deadly dull.”

Dull? Duh! Of course, when you are subjecting yourself to the deeds, feelings, thoughts and opinions of a thousand people, how on earth would you find most of them interesting?

How is it that an innovator like Baron fails to see how to leverage Twitter? The point of Twitter is not to try to follow a thousand boring people talking about their breakfast, their commute or whatever. It is about selecting those Twitterers that provide you with ideas, resources and connectivity that is most relevant and engaging to you.

In the Twittersphere, more than anywhere, content is king. Choose who you follow carefully, and accept that not all of what even they will say is important to you. And use tools to help you with your following. 

First and foremost you can turn who you follow on and off with the click of a mouse. (Twitter Support)

Second, you can look for cool apps that help you sort out which followers are giving you what you are looking for (e.g., try Tweetscan, TwitDir, or TwitterTroll).

Third, you can use tracking stats to look for content on stuff which is useful even though they are not in your Twitter crowd (e.g.,  Twitterholic, Twitterquotient).

Finally, like any tool, it’s how you use Twitter that counts. In this case, you have to give to get. If Baron did not see the interest in following tweets, chances are he couldn’t see how people would be interested in his tweets. There are multiple different ways to use Twitter, some yet to be discovered. It’s up to the user to figure out how to make the most of the Twitter experience.