When a Twit Twitters..

I admit it, I've become hooked on Twitter. It's an excellent way of keeping in touch with people, finding new friends and updating them about what you're doing. I have discovered, over the relatively short time I've been 'tweeting' that I probably do a lot less than most people, and that has motivated me into changing my habits. I'm going to look around and see what is out there for me to go and visit, what's happening at the theatres and locally that I might enjoy. I have already started this and will continue, after all, I need something to tweet about to stop everyone thinking I'm boring don't I! It also helps me to collect and order my thoughts a lot more, after all, as you can see here, I can run off at the mouth (or fingers) for ages at a time. Twitter gives me 140 characters to say my piece. It's not always easy, but it is concise!

I've never been impressed by fame, so there are only a few celebrities that I am remotely interested in following and that is only because their tweets are interesting, funny, informative or just plan ordinary. It makes you realise that they are real people, with real lives, laughs and loves.

I like that.

However as much as there are good things about Twitter, it does have it's mild annoyances. There is always someone ready to exploit a good thing. Here are some that I've found:

The Porn Industry: Ever grinding along (s'cuse the pun) following bunches of random people offering all sorts of carnal delights if only you click on the link.. you can block them and indeed Twitter bans them once identified (I think) but all this does is prompts them to create another account under another random nick and block follow people again. So in effect you get this bouncing offer of sex at least once a day as they create new profiles.. it does nothing to stop them.

The Companies and Sales People: these are slightly less random. They do key word searches and may the gods help you if you've mentioned something in a tweet that they can sell you! I've actively played with this, deliberately mentioning key words that are almost guaranteed to get you followed, just for the pleasure of blocking them (by the way Menopause is a great one. Mention that in a tweet and you can get immediate followers!) When I tweet now, I try to consider whether there is a better word to use, just so it's not picked up by the company bots.

The spiritual, motivational people. Yes, I know it's nice to give support to friends when they need it, I do this myself whenever I feel I can. However, I do it in plain English. I don't try to sound like I sit naked, legs crossed on a velvet cushion with all the wisdom of the cosmos pouring into my head, just so I can pass on "the word" to all us hapless tweeters. In reality of course, I know damn well you actually have nothing to say, so you sit with a book of motivational quotes, just typing them in.

Let me ask all those that inflict this spam on everyone - Take a look at your last tweet. What the hell has that to do with "What are you doing?" which is the whole basis for Twitter's existence!

I don't expect it to stop, it will probably get worse, however the one saving grace in it all is that no matter how many sex kittens, sales people and gurus follow you, you don't have to see what they tweet if you don't want to. You have to actively follow them before you get their tweets.

So really, having said all that, the only problem they cause is that your followers list goes up. Big deal. If Saucy Susie wants to see that I've done my laundry and might go to the pub that night, she's welcome to!

Freedom of speech.. an old concept that didn't really exist until the internet. Don't you love it?