10 ways to lose friends and alienate yourself on Twitter.....

About the turn of the year in 2007/8, Twitter turned from being a network for the vapid self obsessed to one talking about interesting stuff. It is now turning again, into a sort of digital hawking and pimping service. Here, in no particular order, are the 10 Twitterquette deviations most likely to get me to unfollow you:

1. Awesome abuse. The second coming will be awesome, the Concorde standing on its tail and climbing straight into the sky is awesome. A cupcake, quote from your personal social media guru or next release .01 of your tinpot company's software (or even worse, the one you are flacking) is not awesome. Get a f*cking thesaurus and learn the English language.

2. Tweetorrhea - you are quite welcome to twt as often as you like if you have something new and interesting to say. Your latest beverage, lunch, banal observation or whinge about the other people on the plane/train/bus/planet/etc is not interesting, unless it is helpful too.

3. Retweetorrhea - retweeting every saying of the people you want to ingratiate yourself with is not interesting to your readers, who would follow that person themselves if they desired.

4. Retweet Self-Abuse. Dont retweet yourself or what someone has said about you. Evah.

5. Constant low rent pimping - telling me X is ...awesome... and I have to try/support it/you/him/her is the equivalent of door to door hawking. Gratuitous self promotion is the worst sin. The next time you do it its a guarantee you will be avoided.

6. "Everybody follow X, he/she/it are...awesome". I am a dumb sheep who is incapable of deciding who to follow. I need this help, oh yes I do. Unfollow.

7. Enthusiastically promoting every Good Cause du Jour. You only get to change your avatar to black, red, green etc once a year, or I will suspect you of being far more interested in the bandwagon than the band. You will be banned. (Its amazing how its always the same people....)

8. "Take this quiz/test/survey for @someoneyouneverheardof" to find out something they can make money/whuffie/cupcakes from. Doubly insulting if there is some piffling reward dangled.

9. Platitudes, Pretentiousness and Persistent "Right Thinking" propaganda posts. I know it when I see it. And saying "morning all" *, om nom nom nom, kittehs, woo hoo, w00t and suchlike. Bah Humbug!

10. Spam. When I opine on X, I don't expect "@broadstuff, check out our offers on....". Spampool for you.

Any I've missed?

*except @loudmouthman, whose good mornings and goodnights are awesome. Follow him....