I’ve been on Twitter for a few weeks now, so I should give some sort of account of it, especially as I said I would.

I have remained very wary about “following” too many people — with good cause. So far I’ve only added 24, but already when I logon in the morning there are pages and pages of back messages, mainly by a handful of scribes who tell me what they had for breakfast, how many cups of coffee they imbibed yesterday, and then list all the meetings they’ve got throughout the day, before embarking on a marathon to ‘n’ fro with obscure individuals with names like Plodoff, CrankyAss and LowFalutin’ (I made those up to avoid embarrassing real people).

I’ve taken to skimming deftly through those Tweetaramas now, allowing around 5 seconds per page.

The most valuable facility is the “Replies” folder which holds all messages aimed directly at you (@Syntagma) which are very much fewer than the general river of Tweets. I could easily get by with a few Tweets a day, plus references to the Replies cache.

However, I’ve also enabled my cellphone/mobile to receive mobile Tweets. I’ve no idea what they are, but suspect they are “direct messages” which are sent as texts. I seem to have a limit of 250. Maybe after that they will charge my account. Who knows? I’ll be sure to turn it off when they do.

I do have some rather prestigious “Web 2.0″ people following me. Check the list. Some of them are quite interesting in a Web 2.0 sort of way. So far no Web 3.0 followers — maybe they’re too busy semanticizing about the future.

The real problem with Twitter, as with all social networks, is its addictive qualities. It’s so easy to drown in the stuff. If you work for a living online, as I do, it’s vital to rein in your expressive tendencies. Tweets pay no bills (pun not intended).

Indeed, Tweeting will undermine your ability to post content on your sites as it can drain away your creative juices before you’ve even begun the day’s work. Faced with a long, detailed piece to write, the ease of a <140 character post spoils you for the harder task. Better to Twitter in 5-minute spurts two or three times a day.

If, as many do, you attempt to document your entire day as it passes, you are a gonna. As in "gone with the birds" -- no pun intended.

I'll stick with it for now, highlighting the occasional post, like this one -- using tinyurl.com to reduce the character count of the link -- and see where it takes me. As the numbers of my followers mount, I see dimly the name of Alfred Hitchcock materializing in my mind's eye.

Okay, I’m going to get a little bit snobby here. Unheard of, I know, but needs must.

YouGov the British online polling outfit has come up with a list of internet names which drive people up the wall. I’m climbing the wall just looking at them, especially as the list contains some of my very unfavourite terms, incuding “blog” and “wiki”. How can any serious person ever use the word, wiki? It sounds like a Tibetan yak.

Here’s the list in descending order of gruesomeness :

1. Folksonomy (groan, but it shouldn’t be top)
2. Blogosphere (okay, number 2 is about right)
3. Blog (now that should be #1 on anyone’s list)
4. Netiquette (pretty harmless, but what the hell)
5. Blook (now that is a bloody disgrace)
6. Webinar (hmm, doesn’t hit me viscerally)
7. Vlog (talk about mangling the English language)
8. Social networking (I’ve already run a mile just typing it)
9. Cookie (some things are just born to crumble)
10 = Wiki (should have been strangled at birth and higher in the list)
= Podcast (it sounds so insignificant, who let it live?)
= Avatar (Hindu holymen have got a long-standing option on this one)
= User-Generated Content (a mashup with almost no meaning).

The poll of 2000 internet users was done to mark the 10th anniversary of the word “weblog”. I wonder if any of them will last another 10 years?

I was asked the other day if I’m an internet optimist. My first reaction was to say, yes. After all, I make a lot of my living online. But on reflection I knew it was more complicated than that.

Over the years, I’m not ashamed to say, I’ve become something of an internet cynic. By cynic I don’t mean opponent, just wary of its claims, rushes to judgement and general enthusiasms.

I’ve found you can enjoy the internet better — and profit from it more — if you know its strengths and weaknesses, while always erring on the downside.

The upside of the internet is surprisingly slim, though occasionally explosive. Prudent people factor out the explosive aspect because it rarely happens.

So what are we left with? Quite a lot as it happens.

Unlike Dick Whittington’s London Town which was said to be paved with gold — an unlikely story — the internet is paved with slime. Were it a game of snakes and ladders, it would be 95 percent snake. The key to success is distinguishing the very few ladders from the endless serpentine slopes.

There are some things on the net that work, and many more that don’t. For example, although the main niches for content and advertising are crammed full of competition, they still work their magic — if you can get ahead of the crowd.

The so-called long tail — which gladdens the hearts of sentimental neo-Marxists — is a myth which only the likes of Amazon can make pay. Whipping a dead donkey delivers more than operating in some micro-niches.

I’ve learned never to heed the words of enthusiasts who don’t care about financial returns. If that sounds cynical, just put yourself in the place of someone looking to make an income online. “Try knitting or quilting,” they’re urged, “historic trains or Victorian ballads. There’s a huge audience out there.”

“Out There” is about as useful as “Tham Thar Hills” where the gold was supposed to be.

This is not really cynicism, but stoicism. Cultivating the art of effectiveness by cutting away all that wastes time and doesn’t work. Why expend effort on that which drains.

Syntagma’s advice? Get into the mainstream, but be different. Compete on quality, but be distinctive. Don’t listen to anyone without practical online experience. And, above all, filter out the white noise and the useless information.

It’s not difficult. It just takes a stoical outlook — and a little bit of cynicism.

So what’s new?

Well, $12,107 to be exact, but believe me that is peanuts for a working, potentially-profitable business. What’s more, the owner, Guy Kawasaki, is also promoting it in the process of explaining how he did it. It doesn’t get much better.

The deal is to cut out as many operators as possible, with the exception of the tech guys to design the site, and some lawyers. Without those, it could have been done much cheaper, but probably not without anxiety.

Here are a couple of his 26 bullet points that caught my eye :

* 0. I wrote 0 business plans for it. The plan is simple: Get a site launched in a few months, see if people like it, and sell ads and sponsorships (or not).

* 0. I pitched 0 venture capitalists to fund it. Life is simple when you can launch a company with a credit-card level debt.

* 4. I learned four lessons launching Truemors: There’s really no such thing as bad PR. $12,000 goes a very long way these days. You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away. Life is good for entrepreneurs these days.

So-called Web 2.0 businesses can be set up for peanuts — we did that with Syntagma Media because we weren’t sure if it would ever make any money. Our lack of faith has been amply rewarded in monetary terms ever since. Why invest money in something unpredictable if you can bootstrap the business from a credit card? A good idea is not more of a good idea because it has been funded by VCs, and you might just be selling chunks of a very good idea indeed.

Kawasaki is a shrewd guy, and not very experienced in technical terms. In fact, he’s quite like me really, minus the rough edges. So it’s great to see him make a go of Truemors. We wish him well and great fortune to come.

You just gotta give it to the guy. Genius isn’t in it. Jason Calacanis has just written not only the funniest post I’ve read in a while, but also the smartest traffic-hoovering machine in years. I’d call it the industrialization of backlink aggregation. Google watch out — Professor Moriarty is on the case.

Now, if you think I’m doing this post to get a link back from Jason, get a life! His post tickled me puce, that’s all.

Oh, and did I mention he is former Editor of Silicon Alley Reporter, “once profiled in New Yorker piece…,” former GM of Netscape, Brooklyn born, or “his trusty bulldog Toro by his side.”?

His injunction, “DO lie and say we hung out one night back in the Silicon Alley days or after a conference and that I’m actually a really cool guy once you get to know me.” is not possible since I NEVER lie. I once sang a duet with Elvis though.

He ends : If you follow these “Calacanis Link Bait” strategies I will link to you. If you just come out and beat me up I probably won’t… so, there you have it “how to get a link from Calacanis.”

I suspect this is a clever way of using his campaign against SEO, which I totally agree with in an unflashy sort of way, to practise a little of it himself.

Darren at Problogger take note, you have serious competition.

From today’s Times (London) :

Web 2.0 may be destroying civilisation. That, at least, is the view of Andrew Keen, a Silicon Valley-based British entrepreneur and author. He has written The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet Is Killing Our Culture (due out in June), which argues that the web is an anti-enlightenment phenomenon, a destroyer of wisdom and culture and an infantile, Rousseau-esque fantasy. “It’s the cult of the child,” he says. “The more you know, the less you know. It’s all about digital narcissism, shameless self-promotion. I find it offensive.”

The vicious abuse of programmer and technologist Kathy Sierra by a few psychos is deeply regrettable but sadly, par for the course.

Human life is a matrix of the good and the bad, the sublime and the appalling. In an open communications medium like the internet, each of these qualities will be represented. In fact, the bad and the appalling will be in evidence more than might be expected numerically as these people will be filtered out of most other channels by editorial barriers.

This is not new, of course. It has been present since the start of the online world and of blogging in particular. Freedom of speech can never eliminate the horrendous or it would not be freedom of speech.

The internet is the only really free broadcasting recourse for foul-mouthed abuse of the kind Kathy Sierra has endured for almost a month, which includes death threats.

What can be done about it?
Firstly, it shouldn’t be beyond modern police forces to track down the individuals concerned. I suspect they will be revealed as sad cases rather that dangerous urban terrorists.

Secondly, Kathy Sierra should get her life back on track. She is sure to have enormous support and sympathy at the conferences she addresses. Locking herself in her home will only give victory to the bad guys at the expense of her lifestyle and career.

There’s a big Techmeme discussion on this topic.

The panic in the blogosphere is palpable. Some rotter hacked into Wordpress 2.1.1 before the code was released, potentially allowing Al Quaeda a backdoor into our homes. Well, that’s how it sounds.

We are being urged by all manner of worthies to upgrade IMMEDIATELY to WP 2.1.2.

Now that’s all very well, but I guess the majority of users will be on hosted servers and rely on Fantastico (or its equivalent) to present upgrade options. I just checked on one of our hosted servers and the upgrade option is — you guessed it — 2.1.1, and has been for days. It’s still there as I type at 11.30 GMT Sunday morning, March 4.

Shouldn’t someone at Wordpress ping the Fantasticos and tell them, “Houston, we have a problem”? Come on Matt. I can hear Osama sharpening his sword.

Paul Scrivens has posted on the topic “Why blog networks failed” over at Wisdump.com.

Do you remember those things that we called Blog Networks? You might have paid attention or you might have gone about your life like nothing changed and that’s one of the reasons why they failed. ‘Failed’ might be a harsh term to use, but of the hundreds of blog networks that started in 2005 and 2006 which ones are thriving and by ‘thriving’ I don’t mean staying above surface?

His line of reasoning, which is mostly sound, follows the Calacanis line that atomized blogs are less effective revenue earners than major titles, like Engadget or Boing Boing.

Readers of Syntagma may recall we’ve been considering this proposition for up to a year. The reason we’ve amalgamated our 50 domains into three network magazines, and pruned a great many others, is our recognition that the model was not flexible or attractive enough to make the breakthrough in revenue terms.

I believe “blogging” as content provision peaked possibly as far back as a year ago. Other, more traditional or hybrid, models have more to offer, I believe, in connecting with a technology-and-information-bemused audience. Blog networks are fading as Web 2.0 is slowly sinking into a rosy sunset.

But I also think Scrivs underestimates the amount of time it takes to get a content business going. Even Weblogs Inc took 18-24 months to build a site to a decent readership. That takes staying power as well as trust in the model.

What has happened is that following the success of a few sites which grew rapidly in a market with little competition, thousands of copycat operations have appeared like mushrooms in a damp forest.

We have saturation point in gadgets, autos, gaming, and gossip. The failure of many blog networks is largely one of imagination and genuine innovation. Just look at the derivative stuff out there.

As for the model, it can evolve, adapt and morph into newer forms. But, as we well know, it takes an immense and constant effort to accomplish this. It’s not for the fainthearted or the easily discouraged.

Content as a business is not synonymous with “blog networks”. There are some great content sites out there that are not blogs or networks.

I agree with Scrivs that the blog network model has failed as a road to easy riches. But, if you’re in it for the longer term, and innovate while bringing in traditional publishing skills, there may yet be solid achievement round the corner.

Bottom line : There will always be a need for good, informative, well-researched content with commentary while search engines expand and refine their techniques. How that content is presented is important but less so than its usability by the audience.

The only constraining factor is excessive competition squeezing out some operators. But then, that’s always been the case in every industry since wheelwrights started up in the Stone Age.