Customers that follow you give you an opportunity to send a message. Customers you follow are saying things you might be interested in. As you point out, having a dialog is more valuable than either – these are your “friends” in my model.

As a product manager, you care about the problems your customers are facing, and you’re trying to get insights into what those problems are. I think it was Clay Shirkey who said when you have “too much” data, it isn’t a data problem, it is a filter-failure – there’s no such thing as too much data. I don’t believe there are good technology solutions out there today that automate the problem-discovery exercise when you have “too much data.” But that doesn’t devalue it – it is an indicator that the value is still “locked up.”

I considered reversing the order of followed versus following, because it is easier to realize the value of followers as you implied. But I contend that the higher value is in listening to your customers, not broadcasting messages to them. So I placed it “higher” even if the value is currently difficult to unlock.

I’m not sure about your statement that following a customer is more valuable than being followed by one. You can get market insights by conversations with customers, but only if it is somewhat related to your product.

Twitter example:
I can’t read all tweets of the people following the products account. It would be way too much and off topic. But the direct messages, reply-twets and @-mentions are interesting.