Twittering twits

There's this blackbird that lives in the hedge at the end of my street.  I really like to hear it sing, it's such a tuneful little thing.  One night, I could hear it from the bedroom and I swear it was singing the Addams family theme tune.  Yes, at night.  I really never stops.  I'm not sure where it finds time to eat and drink and it must never sleep.  But I'd be sorry if it was gone and I'd not complain about it while it's there.

The thing is, I joined Twitter to network a bit and promote the Kindle books and the book book.  I chose to follow certain organisations, publications and persons to get the lowdown.  The blackbird at the end of my street has nothing on three of four of those I'm following.  Or no longer following, I should say.  The Economist.  Yes, big name in publications of good information.  Big noise in tweets.  Every day about thirty tweets and not about major breaking news.  An article is written, a tweet is sent.  The Economist are not the only ones by any means.  They're just the example that most people will be able to put in context.

I could understand if it was important news going out, or a discussion on a post, or even something of the moment, but it's not.  See, when birds tweet, they're sending messages often crucial to their survival or the survival of the other birds in their neighbourhood.  When human business organisations tweet it seems anything they could think of that could be said, including link, in 140 characters or less, they say.  It's too much.  It's the equivalent of 50 blackbirds roosting on your laptop, mobile phone, PC, whatever and tweeting in a hideously dull monotone.

I admit I've sent a few tweets in a day along the lines of 'buy this, it's for charity' but even though it is for charity and I am driven to push for sales, I couldn't find it in me to saturate anyone's feed night and day with my message.  In fact I've made the conscious decision of saturation bad, drip feed good and after initial test runs, I'll limit it to one or two a day using appropriate #tags and varied timestamps.  I'm not a twittering twit and I can't bear being inundated myself, so won't inundate anyone else.

Now, when I open the page and there are more than five tweets in quick succession by the same organisation, I unfollow.  If you prevent me from seeing what someone else has to say by overloading the page with you ill-planned tweets, I unfollow.  Since when has unfollow been a word anyway?  As long as unfriend I suppose.  That's just more twitfulness in my book.  If they can make up words, so can I.

At this rate, the only tweeting I'll encounter will be my little blackbird friend, the people I actually know who tweet sparingly anyway, and of course Stephen Fry.  Following Stephen Fry is fast becoming tradition.  He's not the only person from the cast of Blackadder I've followed, but the other was in a literal sense that these days might be classed as an afternoon of stalking, and is for an entirely different blog.  I was a young teen and my friends and I spotted him leaving the stage door of the Theatre Royal, so we followed at a not too subtle distance with much giggling just to see where he would go.  It's much easier and far less embarrassing to follow Mr Fry on Twitter, believe me.  He tweets nearly as much as my blackbird, but in a way that doesn't annoy.    I'm sure he could read this blog in such a way that it would sound as amusing as it does in my head, or indeed in a way that highlights every flaw and puts me in my place.  Maybe I'd ask the blackbird instead.