There’s been much muttering this week about the creeping commercialism of Twitter with the followers-for-hire and other hash-tag games, played by mean and heartless corporate villans to dupe unsuspecting Twitter users into propagating their brands.

None of this is new. There have been folk figuring out new ways to subliminally coerce the masses on Twitter since the masses figured out how much fun 140 characters and a twitpic could be.  I know, I’ve met them – and very clever they are too.

If you use Twitter as I do, as a barometer of interest in a topic or theme, you’ll know just how much trivia and non-sense there is out there.  “The Man” has got to do an awful lot [more] to spoil this phenomenon.

Happy 4th of July folks.