Ten years ago, ten years after I joined Twitter, I started an additional account called @diamondgzrblog.
I've started up a new Twitter account. It's specifically for tweeting when there's a new diamond geezer post to read, indeed that's all it'll ever do. It's called @diamondgzrblog, it's started up already, and you're very welcome to follow it.
How it works is clever. It checks my RSS feed every few minutes, and if a new post appears it tweets a tweet. Only the title of the post is included, which might be rather brief and uninformative. But each tweet also includes up to four pictures from the post, if there are any, and this might give a bit more of a flavour. It won't be pretty - the intention is not to create a carefully crafted promotional tweet, merely to issue a notification. Also I fear a lot of you will be asleep when it slips forth, but hey, it's better than nothing, and someone might just retweet it later. (10th December 2016)
After a year @diamondgzrblog had 400 followers and at its peak in July 2024 it had 2778. But it's been downhill ever since, generally due to Elon Musk blundering in and wrecking things, and these days barely 300 people see each tweet and only about 20 act on it. Alas this week it's stopped working altogether because Elon no longer allows automated accounts to operate for free, and no way am I giving the world's richest bigot any money.
So, two things. First I'm going to carry on operating @diamondgzrblog manually, so it should still publish but not necessarily quite so quickly. And secondly I'm starting up an alternative account over on Bluesky.
I've started up a new Bluesky account. It's specifically for announcing when there's a new diamond geezer post to read, indeed that's all it'll ever do. It's called @diamondgeezerblog, it's started up already, and you're very welcome to follow it.
How it works is clever. It checks my RSS feed every few minutes, and if a new blogpost appears it publishes a linked announcement. Only the title of the post is included, which might be rather brief and uninformative. But each announcement also includes up to four pictures from the post, if there are any, and this might give a bit more of a flavour. It won't be pretty - the intention is not to create a carefully crafted promotional masterpiece, merely to issue a notification. Also I fear a lot of you will be asleep when it slips forth, but hey, it's better than nothing, and someone might just reskeet it later. (5th June 2026)
It'll be particularly useful if I publish a post at an unusual time like ten in the morning or four in the afternoon which you might otherwise miss. Thanks to the 100 people who've signed up already. Obviously if you're not on Bluesky (or Twitter) it'll be of zero use so please carry on with your lives as normal. And if you really don't need any more social media in your life then just remember there'll be a new post here tomorrow morning, because there will be, so just turn up and read that.
