Top ten ways to get unfollowed or blocked on Twitter

Argh!

I went through my Twitter "follow" list this morning and did a little pruning.

Like many people, I have a Twitter account that's strictly business (www.twitter/com/craig_rich) where I only tweet business-y stuff and a personal account (www.twitter.com/oldpirate) where I try to post fun stuff such as where I'm having dinner, what cigar I am smoking, how great that last Guinness was, etc.

I am conscious to NOT tweet more than a few times a day. If my life was that interesting, I would write a book. Frankly, people whose lives ARE that interesting don't even bother to write books.

My twitter page is usually full of "stuff" -- mostly nonsensical musing by friends, fellow cigar aficionados and others who have stumbled upon my e-path.

So, who did I "unfollow" or worse, "block"? Well, here what it takes to lose me:

10. If I look at your profile and you follow 9,427 people and no one follows you.

9. If you have only made 1 tweet, yet you follow hundreds of people.

8. If you are a hot babe with a link to your sexy pictures and are looking for relationships...

7. If you do nothing but sell, promote and link to your paid clients.

6. If you do nothing but sell, promote and link to your own business or other self-serving links.

5. If you use excessive foul language. Dropping the f-bomb every other tweet does not impress me.

4. If you incessantly tweet your location for no apparent reason. Yes, there are some cool GPS based apps, but really, we don't care.

3. If you a r e "s i t t i n g o n t h e p a t i o" and think we need to know about it. Yes, it was funny the first 20 times you did it. Just like the commercial. ha ha...

2. If you and another Tweep -- or two or three -- start to treat Twitter like a personal chat room, especially with inside jokes and personal messages. Ever heard of messaging or texting?

1. If you tweet a running commentary of the football game you are watching on Sunday afternoon -- every play, every score, every penalty -- with your reaction, of course (see #5 above) adding up to hundreds of tweets in a 3 hour period...

I'm no expert. Heck, I have probably committed most of these offenses myself at one time or another (well, maybe not the "hot babe" one).

As Twitter settles into the mainstream and the novelty wears off, maybe some of the more irritating users will fall aside or begin to temper their usage. Until then, the "unfollow" and "block" buttons are right over there.

ps: I wrote this while s i t t i n g o n t h e p a t i o.

Fine! How are you?

In this season of contract renewals and new business pitches, the question I hear most often is, "How are you guys doing in this economy?".

And, yes, we are doing fine. Thank you for asking.

I am more and more convinced that specialty and niche publications -- especially those which are not completely giving themselves away online --will survive and even thrive, despite the competition from the plethora of media options available.

The key is not to embrace new tachnology with so much gusto that you end up without a core product any longer. And it's not to pretend those options don't exist.

The key, it seems to me, is to to embrace new technology as an enhancement to your core print product without losing focus. It's the Wall Street Journal model vs. the New York Times model. Those people who need the information you provide to thrive in their business will pay for it. But if you give it away in one medium, while continuing to ask for payment in another... Well, human nature is human nature.

At the Grand Rapids Business Journal, the weekly print product remains the core of our business. Print subscribers also receive free online access to www.grbj.com where every story and column is reproduced, along with daily breaking news and "web exclusive" stories. it's a complete package that works together. One does not compete with the other.

Even our local daily paper continues to throw everything online for free, while losing subscribers every day. This forces them to raise subscription rates, which encourages more pople to cancel their subscriptions. This is the very definition of "unsustainable".

And, yes, we have a Facebook presence. We Tweet on Twitter. We send email blasts. And we'll embrace the next wave of new technology as we have the current options. But the core product -- the newspaper -- continues to be well read, valued, trusted and relied upon.

We can't ask for much more than that.