The use of what are called hash tags (# is hash) is widespread in the business community. It is a way of having an agreed piece of text in a tweet that anyone can find using the search tools in twitter or other twitter client software such as Tweetdeck 9which is what I use on the home PC).
There is a finite number of people you can follow - a colleague of mine worked out the maximum number of people you can effectively follow and it's not that high!
So, to take the example of the butcher (and that Dyl was the post of the year with out a shadow of a doubt!), if he included the following text in his tweets about banding #brassband then his tweet would come up in my search. If he doesn't do that or uses a tag such as #sausage then I will be spared having to read an item in which I have no interest.
This technique is widely used and as an example, I follow a regular thursday night twitter discussion where a subject is chosen at the start and people contribute over a period of hours. The resulting search gives me an absoute mine of useful information from real experts in my field which I get real benefit from.
back to Geoff's earlier confusion - If John chooses to add tMp content to a twitter account, I for one will NOT be following it - I get it already by coming here and I get it from email notifications from the site. Why on earth would I want it a 3rd time?
Following a band is one thing - I follow a number of musicians and get specific insights from them but following a forum that may be reposting existing content isn't for me.
I would suggest you add a search for @therealtmp and you will see anything tmp posts and anything that is addressed to @therealtmp (except direct messages of course!) which will guarantee you get any content that might not make it on to the site. Alternatively, simply visit the twitter page for therealtmp and you'll see the current stream.
John: you might like to consider a periodic "tweetbook" which can be added to tMp. A tweetbook is a pdf file containing all the tweets relating to a specific hashtag or search - it includes any ongoing links they may have contained.
