Twitter can be a great tool and it can also be a huge waste of time so in order to keep me from following into the latter category I felt it would be a good idea to let everyone know what guidlines I going to be using going forward.

1. I’m not following everyone back.

I know that there are those out there that feel it is proper to follow someone who follows you but let’s be honest, you just can’t as the volume will get to be too much. If you decide to follow me that’s great, I’ll stop by your profile page and check out what you’re tweeting and if it’s interesting to me I might follow back. Please don’t take this personally, I just can’t be friends with everyone.

Right now I have over 500 folks I’m following and it’s already too much, there’s just no engagment from most. So yes, there’s a purge coming and again, it’s not personal, just a fact of life – you can only filter so much.

2. I tweet about everything

Some tweet about work, some about what they’re selling, some about family – me, I tweet about everything. So please keep that in mind when you follow me. I’m on Gowalla so you’ll get tweets from that, I mention what’s going on with the kids, at work, gaming, and whatever might be going on at the time.

Yes, my twitter account is personal and I use it that way.

3. Don’t pitch me with a Direct Message

I’ll say it again, don’t pitch me with a direct message – I’ll unfollow you immediately. I do on occasion send out a pitch for something but I do so on a broadcast (everyone gets it), I won’t direct message them to you so please don’t do it to me.

That’s all for now, I’m sure that I’ll be editing it and adding to it as time goes along so I will be moving this to a separate page and will let everyone know when there’s a change to it.

So, do you have a Twitter policy? Why not post a link to it below?

As I sit here writing this the first day of 2010 is coming to a close and while I had hoped to post something sooner the delay has caused me to rethink what the post would contain – a combination of what so many others have done today, a look back and a look ahead.

Looking back

The first thing that comes to mind is that I posted very little in 2009 on both this blog and on my RPG blog, of Dice and Dragons, which had resided at this URL (http://newburyonline.com) for over three years (started on 12/23/2005).

The obvious thing to say to that is just get writing. I’ve tried that in the past and it really hasn’t gotten me anywhere, so this time I took a different track, why am I posting less?

After the usual, “no time, nothing to say,” was dispensed with it, it really comes down to my tendency to want to get everything just right before posting. I’m not talking about just the spelling or grammar, I’m talking about links, any graphics, follow on items, in short I want it all to be perfect going out of the gate. That’s going to stop.

The second item that came up was my tendency to constantly tweak, and tweak, and tweak, and . . . you get the idea. I’ve spent more time than I should looking for new plug-ins, ways to automate postings to some of my social media outlets, tagging, categories, the list goes on from there.

After those it’s just a matter of shifting my energy – do I need to check my stats? Do I need to look at what my ad revenue is? The answer to those is I do, but not at the frequency I have been.

In short, I’ve managed to kill a lot of productive time for writing by focusing on those items I can’t control, trying to hit a level of prefection that is styfling and succumbing to my inner geek more often than I should.

Looking forward

Well, after looking back and thinking on things during the day today (cleaning a kids’ room with nothing but your music can be such a benefit sometimes) I’ve made a few commitments to myself that I’m going to share with you. These aren’t resolutions per se, but instead some of the goals I’ve set for myself, and those things I do online.

Start a 365 day project

Done! Ok, it really should be complete a 365 day project but hey, at least it’s started. I decided to take a photo a day using my iPhone, and just my iPhone. No high end camera, no fancy lens, no studio, just the iPhone and the built in camera app. I’ll be posting them to my flickr account, if fact the first one is already up and I’ve included it here. I’m not counting the title shot of the set, so there will be 366 in total.

I’ll also be including them here from time to time (maybe even every day if folks don’t object).

Post more frequently

I already have my weekly reading log published each Saturday and that will continue, and now I’ll be posting my progress on my 365 project so I’ve already increased from the dead stop I was at not too long ago. The next step is to stop trying to get it perfect out of the gate, just write and post. Posts can always be updated and modified – need to keep that in mind as I move forward. I also need to apply this same thinking to my other blogs as well.

Stop tweaking

Okay, maybe it should be don’t tweak as often. I need to get settled into an rythym and then worry about everything else – I need to write, see above!

Grow my Twitter following

One of the things that stood out as I looked back over the last year is that my Twitter following has stagnated (just above 600) and I would like to see that grow. I typcially share when I post something, when I read something interesting or just to share what’s going on. I’ve got an interesting idea on how to do this and will be kicking if off once I’ve ironed out the details.

I think I’ve rambled on long enough, I would welcome any and all comments you may have including any goals you’ve set for yourself. Sharing goals is one way to help you stay focused on them.

Just a quick bit of site news, I’ve installed a WordPress plug-in, WordPress Mobile Edition that will automatically recognize a mobile browser and render the site in correctly for you.

So whether you read this blog on your computer, reader, or from your favorite mobile device it should look just fine.

If you have any issues please let me know in the comments.