Nice blog and I see your point however, the beauty of twitter is that we can choose to follow or not and even block if we wish. Actually I read another writers comment and he said that linking the words spamming (or I guess no-spam) and twitter together was an oxymoron. To me pretty much the total twitter experience is probably all not much more than ‘legitimized’ spam with a few scattered gems. I have about 8,500 followers that I have built up over a couple of months and I don’t mind who follows as I am not particularly selling anything just ideas. (I do have ads on my website however if I tried to live off that income I would probably starve to death).

The real value in twitter (for me anyway) is that like you I’m a blogger and it presents me with a great way to promote my blog. As I blog on career issues, management, leadership and teamwork the bigger my audience from my point of view the better. For years I blogged, sat writing articles had a few visitors and every now and then a comment or two. Twitter gives me instant feedback because often now someone will RT my tweet (that leads to my blog) and you know that there are people out there that are getting something from your sometimes hard to find words and efforts. I also link people to other’s well written articles so there is a balance of my stuff and things I find as I research for management information on the web. Then of course every now and then you get another compliment, the coveted #followfriday.

I was discussing twitter today with someone who just didn’t get it at all until I explained that you can have locked tweets to talk about private things with your friends, if thats your thing. Emails tend not to get written so twitter is a good substitute for many. I find that a boring approach myself and actually state on my profile and “thanks for following” message “no boring personal tweets”.

I have noticed over time that I, even amongst the clutter, eventually link up with people that provide good quality information in my areas of interest and on “tweetdeck” I just add them to my favorites list and they are the core of my quality group. If I did not endure the overall ’spam’ I would (perhaps maybe) not have connected with the cream. Its a bit like milking a cow I guess, you have to get all the milk and separate the cream later.

Finally, many people are rejecting twitter as a fad however, whether you’re selling ideas (in a hope to influence) or real world products I think it is a case of “ignore it at your peril”. Additionally you wouldn’t stand at the front door of your real world supermarket and vet who was coming in and turn away the ones you didn’t like the look of, well I wouldn’t anyway.

Ric ( I tweet as http://twitter.com/rictownsend and my website is http://www.orglearn.org (or is telling you that a bit spammy :) You can edit it out if you think it is.

They may not technically be spammers but I would like them to find someone else to bother.