Where are the spammers on Twitter? The site seems so clean and free from any spam but is it such a clean "neighbourhood"? This wasn't so some few years back when Twitter was a mere start-up; a little site that was viewed as half-baked. As the started gaining enthusiastic users, so did it attract not a few spammers. Like every site that has been a victim of spam activity, the signal-to-noise ratio can be so low as to scare away the few genuine users of the site. So, the guys behind Twitter just got out some few strategies to drive out the spammers. One was the use of the @spam reporting service to report any spammer on the site. That was some time back (is it 2008 or 2006). Is this service still active?
Is the site really free from spammers? Or:

1. Has the growth of the site's userbase masked spam activity on the site? With the site's userbase growing past the 300 millionth mark as of 2011, have the few hundreds or thousands of spammers' activities been bogged down by the billions of "good" tweets on the site?
2. Or, have the spammers changed tact, or as we call it here, have they "styled up"? Have the spammers now acquired fuller profiles complete with a convincing avatar? Or have they simply turned to a type of "online marketing" that is now dabbed as "Twitter marketing"?

That is something to think about. ;-)

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This should really scare off any microblog admin into action. If you are running a Statusnet microblog that is using  0.9.1 or older versions of the software then read on. Just check out what this guy can do. Simply put, using his method, one can build a massive collection of backlinks right to their site and get way with some good Google pagerank. Now that is not fair. While many webmasters, bloggers and your microblog included are squeezing out every legit SEO strategy from the man hours you put into your sites, some guy can hop on and steal your pagerank. Please read the article on that site, now. If your Statusnet microblog has been listed there, upgrade it right away. Statusnet is now in 1.0.1 release version.

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This is one classic usability (or is it accessibility? Nope.) failure: Broken Links. The links to the microblogs on the "Join the Networks" block were all pointing to the registration form on the sites. These weren't broken per se but, I mean, whenever a surfer hits an "Error" wall on any website, they will simply go away. Actually, the "Bad Request" error is due to the changes that StatusNet introduced sometime back. Initially, public microblogging communities allowed registrations. But not any more. So the link to the registration form is redirected to an error page. Ouch! I should blame myself too. How can a webmaster leave broken links on such a nice online resource. Slap my wrist.

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The template I have been using on this blog for the last 3 months or so closely resembles the classic Twitter look (see the image below).

Nice, isn't it? Well, I just love its look; it just gives (may be) not a little credence to the main topic of this blog: Microblogging. With that cartoonish, blue sky background, it is less harsh on your eyes when you are reading this from a computer. You can actually get this cool theme from this site. However, there are few things you have to check out for before applying any third-party Blogger template. If you hate to read source code you'll end up agonizing why your templates do not show properly at all.  So it is better to get your hands dirty if you would like to get the results that you desire.

How to choose a good, Third-party Blogger Template

I'll not delve into the choice of colors  to choose for your site. That is best left to you, the site owner. However, the most important factor that influences the look of a website's template are images mostly the embedded ones and the background images. Without this, many templates would be wholly made of CSS color schemes that mostly have a matt look.
If you are about to apply that glossy, third-party Blogger template to your site first analyse the template using this simple checklist (be ready to immerse yourself into CSS, Blogger XML format: source code):

1. Where are the template's embedded and background images hosted? This is very important. I once had the misfortune of running one third party template that had some images hosted on ImageShack. At the start it was alright. A few months down the line, the blog had error messages all over in place of the colorful images. . I just had to apply another template. One way to know where the template's images are hosted is to read the template's source code. Wherever there is an image URL, pick the URL and run a search for the image online. The best free, third-party Blogger templates usually have all their images hosted on Blogger but this is not a guarantee that the image cannot be deleted. Steer clear of templates that have images hosted on the developer's website.
2. Are you allergic to sponsored links on website templates? If you are, then it's best you choose some premium templates for your site.

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