Yesterday, news surfaced about the new Twitter Blacklist which lists out all of the spammers on the social networking site. That site is not related to Twitter and only has 329 spammers. Considering that there are millions of users on Twitter, I have a feeling that there are way more than 329 spammers.

Jesse Stay did some digging of his own and found out that Twitter will be completely removing spam accounts. They have their own internal list spammers and according to Twitter will completely block those accounts accordingly. Whether or not the company will be successful at banning spam accounts is a whole other question.

For those who thing Twitter spam is a big problem or run into issues with spammers on the site, Twitter has a highly active forum on Get Satisfaction. In there you can report any spammers and Twitter will quickly suspend those accounts. Have you run into a substantial amount of Twitter spam? Do you think this is a big issue for the site and is being followed by spammers really that big of a deal?

You’re sitting in front of your computer, the light from your monitor burning a hole in your retnas and all you want to do is get up another post. You finally find something to write about but while writing you open up another tab in your browser and check out your top 5 or 10 new sources to make sure that there isn’t something more urgent that needs to be posted about. This isn’t how it starts. This is the beginning of the end.

It starts with the rush you get from a surge in traffic to your site whether it is coming from Digg, StumbleUpon, Techmeme or any other news aggregator. The rush isn’t a warning sign, it’s simply one of the first steps toward blog addiction. The rush that you feel from the jump in traffic doesn’t last long. As you look over your Google Analytics, MyBlogLog traffic counter, incoming traffic from Hittail, feed stats on Feedburner and a number of other sources, you realize that you need more.

The biggest problem with a blog is the emotional attachment that you had from the onset. You don’t want to give it up and you only want more, more of that rush of seeing your name plastered atop some random news aggregator that says you are king of the hill, if only for a few minutes. Few people congratulate you but somewhere in the back of your mind you are thinking that you can take on anybody.

It is at this exact moment that suddenly you are becoming a full blown blogger and potential addict. Us bloggers love to talk about ourselves because we are the experts. 95 percent of people are experts in themselves but a smaller 5 percent decide to write about something else outside of our personal lives. For that smaller segment, our writing is all the more important because we want to be honored for the written translation of our momentary thoughts of genius.

All day long you will begin to search for those thoughts of genius and if you’ve become a blogging addict, thoughts of genius eventually begin to merge with mediocrity. At this point your mind is buzzing from content exhaustion but all you can do is continue to write, continue to push out that next sentence. For the typical blog addict, sentences rapidly lose their value and words suddenly become filler.

Am I apologetic for the written filth that I frequently produce? Not at all. I am a blog addict and I know that somewhere in there is a hidden gem and my readers will be so fortunate as to find that gem and hold it close to their hearts. I also know that I’m only kidding myself because in reality my readers only glance over my content which has now become a source of their own content exhaustion.

Really, all you need is that one hit. That hit where suddenly you are catapulted to the top or at least standing with the leaders. That one hit leads to multiple hits on your website and suddenly the hudreds of visitors that you have viewing your name for half a second suddenly mean something to you. A few of them might even stop to say hello. Hi!

While I will never know most of you, I will know some and that’s all that matters. Among us blog addicts we all know what that rush feels like and for some reason we have begun chasing after it. We click publish even though we know a post looks like shit just because we think that post could make us king of the hill again.

We fight to get a press release 1 minute earlier than the others because in our world somehow this 1 minute has suddenly made a difference in our lives. At this point they might as well just connect me to the computer and feed me content because at some point it became all I wanted: more content. David Carr highlighted the vicious cycle over a year ago:

Now I have become a day trader, jacked in to my computer and trading by the second in my most precious commodity: me. How do they like me now? What about … now? Hmmmm … Now?

The cycle can destroy you and I have met many people who it has. I meet them on a regular basis at conferences and various events. I now look in the mirror and see it in myself and suddenly I’ve begun wondering when did life suddenly become about the momentary celebrity? I somehow suddenly crave this attention which is ultimately nowhere near as valuable as that which a family member can provide.

The reality is that expression is part of human nature and we all crave the connection we get when others empathize with that which we express. The blog empowers this connection but just as economics teaches us, it has diminishing returns. That is what a blog addict has to look forward to. While I cannot advise others what decisions to make, I can tell you that I will surely be making new decisions based on my findings while living the life of a blog addict.

I was reading Jeremiah Owyang’s post about how he was moderating a panel at Web 2.0, was receiving negative feedback from people on Twitter and immediately switched course of the presentation. Jeremiah is a quick thinking guy and decided to open up the panel for audience suggestions. I’m not quite sure if it was his memory of the Zuckerberg-Lacy interview that moved him to switch but it was a good call.

Just yesterday I was working on a powerpoint for a presentation that I’ll be giving next week and I thought to myself, “what if I had Twitter streaming during the presentation.” For the audience I’ll be speaking to next week it would be useless but I could imagine this making sense with more tech savvy audiences. As Jeremiah points out though, too much audience intervention creates chaos as we witnessed at SXSW with Zuckerberg.

I think a little Twitter intervention may be useful but then again, you are acknowledging the kids that are passing notes. The kids passing notes are definitely not the kindest kids in class so giving them the time of day is not always best. I have not had the opportunity to sift through Twitter while in a presentation but next time I’ll surely check it out.

Do you think using Twitter to monitor the reaction of an audience is useful? Have you ever used Twitter while presenting?

Over the past couple days I’ve been speaking with people more about the business of blogging. Ultimately blogs are a tremendously challenging business. You need to post as much as possible and you need to break news stories on a regular basis if you plan on getting to the top. Frequently you also need to play dirty to reach the pinnacles of success. There are handsome rewards for the best bloggers but the space available to the best is limited.

If you take a look at the top blogs on Technorati, very few have managed to get top advertisers sponsor their site. Huffington Post, the top blog according to Technorati, appears to be one of the lucky few that has obtained large advertisers. The rest for the most part have failed in this regard. So why do big brands consistently stay away from event the largest blogs on the internet?

I would say posts like this one by Mike Arrington would be one of the primary reasons large brands stay away. Mud slinging and straightforward slander. A statement such as “Cook was directly responsible for scaling Twitter, and he very much failed in his job” by Mike Arrington is not only opinion but it’s completely false. Compare the downtime of Twitter to the downtime of MySpace during their peak growth periods and you’ll see substantially more uptime for Twitter.

In “Cult of the Amateur” (which I have been quoting frequently as of late), Andrew Keen sits down with Al Saracevic, the deputy business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Keen asks Saracevic, “What do you think distinguishes bloggers from professional journalists?” His response was that “In America, bloggers don’t go to jail for their work.”

On a daily basis bloggers lash out against others and make false accusations which traditional journalists stray from. Is this freedom of speech? Of course but there is definitely crossing the line and the decision of bloggers as a whole (I have done so myself) to show their willingness to make slanderous statements about others is why big brands stay away.

Not all blogs participate in such behavior though. I have met a number of journalists that have started their own blogs with the intent to grow them big and they typically don’t make false accusations. In the world of blogging, lashing out against others attracts links and makes headlines. In the world of journalism, it attracts lawsuits. Until there is a standard for “citizen journalism” and bloggers as a whole, lines will continue to be crossed and the leaders will continue to play dirty.

It’s the nature of the game. While unfortunate, it has become a fact of life. Do you think there should be some sort of certification or standard created for blogging?

I decided to continue making this a Twitterful Tuesday and post yet another post about Twitter. I just read a post by Sam Lawrence about the current Twitter search tools available. He mentions that for some reason Twitter statuses aren’t showing up in Google. I would argue that the primary reason for this is that there aren’t enough microblogging services. In contrast to blog search which searches multiple platforms a Twitter search would be branded.

As such Google doesn’t want to actively promote another brand. I would say Google has somewhat of a conundrum on their hands. In blogging, the platform you use to push out content doesn’t really matter because that content ends up on various websites. Contrast this with Twitter which for the most part has content centralized in one location (with an API that enables you to extend it elsewhere). If Google is going to start search microblogging search service, other competitors are going to have to gain some traction.

Currently I don’t do much search through twitter but I’d definitely use it for finding information on specific topics. It’s also a great way to find links related to a topic. In a world full of infinite content, Twitter is a useful tool for finding timely information. Do you think that there would be any benefit to developing another search tool for Twitter when Tweetscan already does a great job? How do you search through Twitter?

Today must be Twitter Tuesday because this is the second post in a row that I’ve written about Twitter. Twitter has become a necessary part of my blog. Since Twitter began acting funny over the weekend my blog saw a relatively substantial decrease in traffic. One commenter this morning said that he had unsubscribed from my feed and was now completely reliant on my Twitter feed to update him of new posts.

While I think he is a rare case, Twitter has been driving an increasing amount of traffic to my site. I previously wrote about Twitter etiquette and some people said that linking to yourself in Twitter is annoying and not proper etiquette. In a guest post on Problogger, Chris Brogan explains how he uses Twitter to promote his blog. He suggests asking questions rather than simply posting the title of his article.

This model has appeared to gain traction throughout the Twittersphere (not sure if that’s a word). Also, simply posting about your blog is not a good model because people get tired of following. A large percentage of tweets should be part of the conversation. I try to keep promotional tweets limited to blog posts but at this point it has been necessary to tweet about my posts. Have you found it necessary to tweet about your blog posts? Do you think this practice is poor form?

I know it may seem odd to say, but the other day I had a meeting with some very interesting people and when I was introduced to new faces I was introduced as a blogger. At first I was taken back by this introduction. I had never really considered myself a blogger, I always thought myself a PR flack who happens to blog.

Then it dawned on me; being called a blogger is not like being called a writer, there is a slight difference. A blogger isn’t a job unto itself like a writer, a blogger is more like a modifier, you do something else and you also blog.

I know plenty of writers; writers for papers, books magazines, heck I even know a guy who writes instruction manuals for electronics. All of these people consider writing their profession. I, coming from the PR/Marketing world, have always considered writing as a tool. I write because it is the most effective channel for getting my message out.

I guess that is why I never really considered myself a blogger. I never really considered a blog more than a tool for getting my message out to as many people who would read it. The more I thought about it I started to think this is what all bloggers really were.

How many bloggers do you know actually make a living off of their blog. Very few, it’s like being in a band. Sure there are some bands out there that make a living playing music, but most of us do it as a passion not a profession.

In that sense I am a blogger. I am someone who writes because he has a passion for PR/Marketing and social media. My profession will always be PR/Marketing but my passion could be considered blogging. Are you a blogger?

I mean are you a real blogger? Are you someone who writes because you have a passion for what you are writing about or are you a writer who happens to publish on a blog? There is a major difference and I wonder how many each type there is out there. Let me know what you are.

This afternoon I received a new twitter follower that goes by the name “mediaexpert”. I have posted a Twitter screenshot of her profile below (if it’s even a her). By the time I checked out her profile, I realized that she had already added and interacted with local D.C. social media expert, Doug March. Now I may be an aggressive self-promoter but this person takes the cake. I have seen a number of people like this but Ms. “Social Media Expert” has absolutely no idea what social media is about.

She has posted a background image on her Twitter profile of practically every “Web 2.0″ startup she could find. One of her tweets states that she is giving a presentation on “what social media can do for organizations.” Whoever she is, she should definitely not be the one advising organizations as she is going to walk them down a plank. Her horrible profile doesn’t stop at her background image.

She fails to place her name on her profile, she links to Myspace.com as her website (trust me it’s not … it’s owned by a small company called News Corp) and her bio describes herself as a “social media expert.” As I wrote about this morning, Andrew Keen states how anybody can tout themselves as an expert in today’s age of social media. You just need to be loud and opinionated. All I can say is that I feel bad for whomever she is speaking to next week (if she really is).

While I have been known for aggressively promoting myself, I have at least personally met at one point most of the contacts in my social media life. If I haven’t, I have reached out to them directly and privately to learn more about them. Social media is not about counting your friends on Facebook or Twitter, it’s about making connections with real people. If you came up and poked me without me knowing you, I would most definitely remember not to interact with you in the future.

Go say hi to the social media expert on Twitter. I definitely hope she is not the future of this industry.

A significant discussion took place over the weekend and continued into yesterday evening. Sarah Perez provides a great write-up of the discussion that took place. This discussion is monumental. For the first time bloggers are becoming concerned about the same thing that media companies have been complaining about for the past 10 years as Napster sparked the beginning of commoditized content. Other sites can take our content and reuse it and ultimately take the conversation elsewhere.

One of the key offenders: Friendfeed. Friendfeed doesn’t stand alone though. Facebook, Digg and numerous other sites have been doing this for years. They take our content and other peoples’ content and offer it as a way to spark conversation on their site, not ours. This is substantial, they provide the venue for conversation to take place and take the content for free. I would argue that the key differentiator between friendfeed and the content creator is the community.

The battle taking place on the web is over community ownership. Ultimately we are members of multiple communities in our lives. If sites can build a community of passionate users around a topic that they are passionate about, then everybody wins. The only challenge is in how that content is leveraged and if the community members benefit from this usage of this new technology. The saying goes around that if we all raise the water level then everybody can float up and everybody benefits.

While I would argue that some peoples’ raft (or whatever flotation device they are using to stay afloat) eventually gets holes punctured in it, most of us get a net benefit. If you want to build value then build a community, don’t simply produce content. That has been the failure of blogs and while breaking news will always attract visitors, it is an unsustainable business. While content has become commoditized, it isn’t completely free. Fortunately though content has been commoditized into different subsets: high quality, medium quality and low quality content (not very original categories, I know).

We will not see the complete commoditization of content as a whole but in the end do you really want to be playing in a commoditized market? I don’t! Are journalists the next farmers? I hope not. Where I foresee the real value is in community. Mainstream media has destroyed this but fortunately thanks to their reach there is time to revive some of what has been lost. If you can become a central node for a community, you win and ultimately all the members benefit.

We are all content producers and we all deserve our fair share of revenue for the commodities we produce. In the whole scheme of things if you are in the content business, you better start building a community because that’s what matters. What are you doing to build community with your content?

Well it looks like Twitter has officially tipped. Personally, I have noticed a jump in the size of my Twitter followers over the past few days. Just today I’ve had 15 people add me and the day isn’t over. This is similar numbers to what Alley Insider is reporting. Brian Solis says that “Twitter is the New Real Estate Frenzy“. I agree and a number of people are battling to gain the most Twitter followers on the site.

Are you still not on Twitter? Over the past week I’ve had at least 10 people ask me what Twitter is and why it keeps showing up on my Facebook profile. If you don’t understand what Twitter is, the first thing I recommend is that you go register for the site and follow 200+ people. Then, start joining the conversation. This is the same way that you leverage any social media tool for the first time. If you want a more thorough overview of the application, feel free to contact me.

So why join Twitter aside from trying to collect more followers? It’s where the conversation is happening! Seriously, if you want to have an interesting dialogue online you have to go where the conversation is happening not try to bring it to you. Twitter is where the conversation is happening and given the Alexa chart below, I would say that it is soon going to experience many more conversations. Are you on Twitter? Have you experienced a boom in your followers over the past couple days?

Also, follow me on Twitter if you aren’t already. Send me an @ reply and I’ll add you back!