Block – Dirty word in Twitter land

Chances are you don’t block many of your followers and you aren’t alone. Blocking is looked upon as a dirty word. Bringing it up results in confused looks up to outrage. Judgmental, big ego, and more labels may be assigned to you for admitting you block more than the occasional spammer. But let’s take a look at who folks block.

Blocking – Not just for Spammers

Spammers aren’t the only ones you might want to block. Spammers covers those users (or robots) sending out a steady stream of noise. There are a few other types to block:

• Multi-Level-Marketers aka MLM – enough said
• Get Rich Quick – preys on those looking for easy street
• Get Followers Quick – looking to find those that seek the fast path to many followers
• See my video/pictures/site – usually adult oriented. Fake profiles to snag in the easily tempted.

But how do you go about finding and stopping them?

Twitter Block Tools – Spammers Eat Dirt

Manually blocking followers is work. Consider one of these useful tools for blocking.

• Twittfilter – http://www.twittfilter.com/
• TwitBlock http://www.twitblock.org/

So still think those who block have big egos? Or it’s too much work?

Twitter Friends Block Spammers

My friends block spammers and the like as well. Here’s just a few:

• @gloriabell
• @creativereason – Yessiree. I block all that I see follow me.
• @PhilGerb – woot! Blocking in the USA (Channeling the spirit of John Cougar)!
• @levitanl – I block them all!
• @Allisoncds – Holla! Block & report here!
• @MilliGFunk
• @deborah91473
• and more…

What’s keeping you?!

Jeremiah Owyang brings up the question, is blogging becoming lifestreaming. It’s a dang good question. Bloggers across the net have taken to using their blogs as a collection point for all of their various Twitter, Friendfeed and other sources. They’ve become aggregation points.

The truth is though that’s a skewed view. Blogging is changing in it’s use. In a way, some folks are taking it back to its roots, the self centered story. Blogs have long been personal bandstands and stories. Tech focused blogs or real estate blogs are really still on the edge of the curve in my opinion.

What’s really happened is that folks have found more effective methods of sharing links, stories, and pictures. They’ve also discovered video, podcasts, and other formats. The push to push out all your ‘content’ via the blog is changing. Blogs aren’t the end all and be all, they’re just another tool in the box.

Myself? I’m actually not lifestreaming via the blog. That’s what I do with Twitter and Facebook. The blog is more focused on a few topics. As a matter of fact, I actually have a few blogs and contribute to a couple other parenting focused blogs. Less anecdotal.

How about you? Has your blog taken to being a life story, an aggregation of your other output? Or are you still blogging on topic?

Jeremiah’s original article

Please consider my ebook on Social Networking.

Mashable geek Ben Parr brings us a helpful post on creating custom Twitter backgrounds. Ben introduces the reader first though to reason why one might want a custom background.

The top reason provided? Personalization and expression! That’s right; ditching the blue and putting up something that says you on it is going to be vast improvement. Luckily it’s easy to do with the sites Ben points too.

In addition to linking to about half a dozen free design tools, several excellent samples of custom profile backgrounds are shown and commented on. My favorite is for Doug Cone aka @nullvariable.

The list of design sites included MyTweetSpace. After skimming down to the list, I was able to visit MyTweetSpace and in minutes have a brand new custom background.

All of the resources provide a form to fill in for the text portion, the ability to upload a profile picture, and you can select from a bevy of predesigned background pictures.

A caveat to mention; each free background is tagged with the source. This isn’t a big deal for personal accounts, but for a professional company page, you’ll want to spend a few dollars. At least two of the Twitter background sites provide a pay upgrade option.

Visit my Twitter page, then visit Mashable. Break free of the blue!