On the plus side, I have been led to some great web sites and articles. That has been very good, but I am not sure that outweighs the negatives. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Some people seem compelled to tweet their every thought — and most of these people appear to have salient thoughts in their heads that would sound, if they were made physical, like two BBs rolling around in an empty tuna fish can. They suffer from a mind-numbing twitterhea. I don’t need to know you are bored tonight or read the drunken conversation you overheard in a bar.

2. Other people seem to do the above and then re-tweet what I already get from the original twitterer, probably in an attempt to push as many tweets as possible. Didn’t we follow one another because of similar interests in the first place? There is no need to re-tweet to fellow travelers.

3. Some tweets are simply empty and obvious marketing moves, sort of tweeted junk mail. I don’t mind links to relevant blog links (I’ve even done that once or twice.), but don’t keep trying to sell me on links to marginal copy.

4. Many tweets are just fluff, simplistic ideas that are the written equivalent of  like, uh and um in spoken language: they take up space unnecessarily. A well-known designer took the time to let everyone know that content is more important than design and design should support the content. Well, duh. Share your genius not platitudes.

5. Finally and this is rather like No. 4, some real experts in a field seem to think that we want reports on their daily life instead of insights and thoughts along the lines of their professional expertise. As an example, I follow the Getting Things Done guru, David Allen. I had hoped for some good daily tips. Instead I have found out about wine, gardening and the weather in Ojai, Calif. Interesting, but not what I hoped for. I’ll stay a follower, however, because the occasional gem is in there.

I have been guilty of a few of these, in part because I felt the need to say something once or twice a day, but no more. Tomorrow I cull my “following” herd and will tweet only what I think is truly important, even if I am silent for awhile.

I am sure the Twitterati will be saddened….

I am beginning to change my mind. What I see instead is that small newspapers are stretched so thin in terms of staff and revenue that it is hard to keep up with the changes in technology and the costs involved.

Software needs constant updating. The move to the web adds additional work each week.  It means that staff members have to learn new programs, and it means that they not only have to put up the paper each week, they have to move stories and photos to the web site.

Add to that fact that many journalists who run small newspapers are having a difficult time switching to the new paradigm of social networking websites and the like, and it’s no wonder that these are parlous times.

I don’t think we can fight the inevitable. We need to embrace the new technologies, new ways of doing things, and do the best we can to train our staffs to produce the best product for our new newspaper readers. The good news is that embracing some of the new technologies can save time and money. That’s what we need to focus on.

You simply must find the time to plug in to the brave new world of newspaper publishing.