uber.la

I started the Just Click It series of posts a week ago because I wanted to share my wanderings in a more coherent way. Here's what I mean.

Most days I spend a few hours (could be many) on the computer, much of that time is spent moving around the web in random ways to find useful nuggets for my brain. Now my meandering is not necessarily random if you know a little bit about me.

1. I work in (and try not to obsess about) social media, so many of the things I write about or tweet about have to do with social media
2. I love music, so I will often throw in a music video or playlist as my thematic background
3. When something strikes me as laugh-out-loud funny I do my best to share it
4. I wax philosophic about the web, my participation in it or avoidance of it
5. The wonders of the world never cease to amaze, and if I find something outrageously scientific or odd that will often find a way into my stream

So what am I doing? What I call my lifestream is a collection of outputs of my wanderings, rantings, tweets, muses and entertainments. If you are connected to me via social media, and you have similar interests you will likely find something pre-approved and annotated by yours truly. Now if you don't care for my tastes the "stream" may come off as random and useless. This is how most people experience Twitter for the first time.

I often hear, "Why do I care what your having for lunch or when you are going to the bathroom?"And for that I don't have a great answer. "You don't and you shouldn't." But I am not the ruler of Twitter or how people use it. But I can unfollow at any time. And I might just put out an original thought or two about how people "should" use Twitter. Of course, that is according to ME.

Other things I say to new Tweeters:

1. Find someone you are interested in and follow them.
2. Follow just a few people and listen.
3. And for goodness sake don't start tweeting about things you hate others tweeting about just to join in.

My rule of thumb is taken from the Talking Heads song, Psycho Killer, "When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed/ say something once, why say it again?"

And so, for the purposes of this metaphor I am filtering the universe of the web and serving up only the bits that I find important, funny, or amazing. That's MY directive. If it doesn't fit that criteria you won't hear me or read me chatting, blogging or tweeting about it.

And in my quest to get better at focusing, I am unfollowing people at a rapid rate for several Twitter uber-violations. *These are my rules, so if you don't agree, let me know what you think in the comments, that's why they're OPEN.*

1. I'm going to get a Diet Coke. I'm going to bed. I'm going to eat.
2. Get a 1,000 followers in 10 minutes.
3. The dentist isn't telling you all about Teeth Whiteners because they are evil.
4. I can show you how to make more money than you can dream about using Twitter.
5. Come see my sexy pics, I'm lonely.
6. The best deal on Flat Panel TVs just got better, click here for our lowest price yet!
7. Anything you can quote I can quote better. (Again if you don't have anything to say, it's best to be quiet. Even if I like the quote I'm likely to unfollow you. No big loss. But I don't need you to become my Famous Quotes researcher.)
8. And yes even FollowFridays can piss me off at times. Better known as #FF or #FollowFridays, these are usually a long list of Twitter promoters pimping their friends and family to get more followers. There was this "lion guy" Tweeter that #ff'd me week after week. At first I was like, "Gee dude, thanks." Later when I went to look at his Tweetstream… Guess what? … It was ALL #FF. That's all this person did. Talk about working the follower network.

And that's it. If you try and Tweet things of value, what ever that value is to you, then we're golden. If you start to hammer me with coupon-type stuff, or what you're having for lunch, I might UF. (I'm not a foodie.) Worse, if I think you're WAY off, I'll probabaly let you know.

I've been accused of being harsh at times. *I apologize.* But what I hate is people wasting other people's time. So I will do my best to keep it clean, and to Value the Tweet. And I'm working towards making my emails only 140 characters too. Think about how efficient that would be. "Here's why I'm writing, here's what I need." I'll save the love letters for my wife.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/i-am-a-filter

Tags: 140 character emails, good twitter habits, i am a filter, just click it, love letters for my wife, new to twitter, newbies, not a foodie, twitter rules, twitterrules, value the tweet, why i tweet