The Flatirons emerging through storm clouds H1 System, HC 210mm, velvia 50 Hasselblad 645. Photograph by Bob Carmichael. Used with Permission—we’re big fans of his work.

Boulder is my hometown, the green mountain valley where the Great, Golden, now-suburb filled Plains meet and shake hands with the high n’mighty red Rocky Mountains. It’s where I live and work and breathe and bike and sweat and fall in love and walk my dog and shop for groceries…so I figure hey, it deserves its very own Top 10 Twitter List.

Still, a Top 10 Twitter list is personal, and therefore not comprehensive. So 1) if I left you out, please add yourself in comments below so that Boulder businesses and individuals can be sure to follow you.

And, 2), if you want an “objective” list, you can go to Twitterholic.com, where you’ll find out who the most followed twitter tweeters are in Boulder, Colorado. @elephantjournal is at number 9, currently, despite having only joined up six months ago, and having only “got” Twitter three months ago, when @wookiehangover got us off twitter.com and onto tweetdeck. Click here to read my previous posts about how to get the most out of Twitter whether you’re a business or individual (key is to use Tweetdeck, or Twhirl, or Seismic…some “dashboard” interface that’ll get you off twitter.com. Second key is to make tweets both personal (make sure they’re interesting to you) and yet useful, relevant, and interesting to others. Don’t tweet too much about “what you’re doing.” No one cares too much if I’m walking my dog and getting lunch at Chipotle. Still, tweeting personal stuff once in awhile reminds folks that you’re human, not just in it for business or followers or what. Links are always good. Retweeting (RT) is good, it shows you’re not in all this by yourself and you’re reading your community’s tweets at least a little. The main thing is, have fun. It’s just another way of communicating.

So, Twitterholic.com: click here for the Top 100 most Followed Boulder tweeters, and if you live in Boulder and want to get the most out of Twitter, it might be a good idea to go through and follow most of those 100 active Boulder Twitterers (usually, you’re only followed commensurate with your success in offering fun, useful, occasionally personal, always interesting tweets).

Okay, off the top of my head, here’s my Top 10 Useful Boulder Twitter Tweeters You Should Follow:

Boulder-focused:

1. @bouldermagazine ~ great, useful, personal tweets—you feel like there’s a human behind these tweets. Even better, they seem to see part of their role and supporting the other local community tweeters through RTs, spreading the word. Nailing it—I’d never thought much about Boulder Magazine (not since being featured as a top stylee bloke in an issue two years back, at least), now I think of them with appreciation every day as I read (and often RT) their tweets.

2. @dailycamera ~ Many big corporate-owned entities have a hard time on the personal context of twitter. Still, the Daily Camera, Boulder’s longtime daily paper, manages to do a straightforward, steady, consistent, classic job of getting the local news out. I now go to dailycamera.com 20 times a week, reading articles and editorials and viewing videos of The Duzer…as opposed to once a month in the pre-twitter era

3. @dishgourmet ~ Dish, a great, high-quality if pricey lunch spot in town, was one of the first and is still one of the best users of twitter to do something vital: get more customers in, more often, by offering useful tweets and publicizing good deals—keeping Dish at the top-of-mind of the business community and other folks online each morning and we decide where to go for lunch, coffee etc. Another local business making strong use of twitter with daily specials, fun news-you-can-use etc.: @teeandcakes

4. @downtownboulder ~ An association of downtown, mostly local business, Downtown Boulder is doing a good job getting the word out on their members. They could do even more, and Boulder-based tweeters would dig it—who doesn’t want to know about lunch specials, free cups of coffee, who’s teaching yoga at noon somewhere and that sorta thing?

5. @freshideasgroup ~ One of the US’ leading PR and marketing firms for all things natural, Fresh Ideas are good peeps with good tweets. Follow ’em.

5a. @elephantjournal ~ Maybe only 25%, tops, of elephant’s tweets are about Boulder. Still, if there’s a good lunch special or coffee deal or Boulder news item, elephant will likely RT it to our 4,600+ followers—making us us a useful local follow and powerful networker. Born n’bred in Boulder, we’re big fans and proud to represent. *If yours truly, Waylon Lewis runs for City Council this Fall, you’ll likely see his @waylonlewis heat up.

6. @boulderchamber

7. @boulderbooks

8. @thetbar ~ Who knew a lingerie company, a great local indie business run by a great single mom buddy of mine would garner more followers than just about anybody in Boulder?

9. @spudbros ~ one of the first lunch joints to grock and take advantage of twitter. Got me to go in the first time, buy an entree, second entree was free for my friend.

10. @boulderparking ~ wanna know where to park, what garage is full, what the password is to get some free parking in a garage, what days are free? Follow.

11. @bcbr should be on this list. Also, @jenniferegbert, a stylish, savvy and sweet realtor who’s active in the Boulder (actual and) virtual community!

Some of the biggest missing voices in Boulder: Naropa, University of Colorado, etown. Who else has failed (thus far) to translate worldly megaphone into twittersphere?

Bonus round.

These folks don’t necessarily tweet much about Boulder, but they are of Boulder and are good, interesting peeps.

1. @gaiam ~ one of our best, biggest, greenest, LOHASiest businesses has an active presence on Twitter. I give ’em a lot of credit: few bigger corporations have managed to establish good, personal yet useful and uplifted presences on twitter. I’m in their demographic, as is elephant journal, and yet the last few months on twitter is the most I’ve ever thought about Gaiam on a daily basis.

2. @jaredpolis ~ our Congressman, oh we love him so.

3. @gwenbell ~ a colleague, friend, ally, comrade-in-arms (are for hugging). She’s writ a few sharp posts for elephantjournal.com, one of ’em (mostly) about social media.

4. @andrewhyde ~ This tech-savvy entrepreneur helped get a bunch of local Boulder businesses on twitter, showing ’em how it was useful to their bottomline. For that, he makes this list. Oh, also, he has a hella lotta followers. Still, unlike the other Tech Titans listed here (Gwen Bell, Micah Baldwin, Brad Feld, Jeffrey Kalmikoff), he’s paid deliberate, special attention to the local Boulder scene. He has a great blog on Boulder businesses getting on Twitter here, with many of his favorites listed (@elephantjournal is not included among Boulder businesses making good use of Twitter, alas).

5. @micah ~ Micah Baldwin, Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Brad Feld and Gwen Bell have been featured a decent amount on elephant. We’re big fans of these big players with big hearts in the greater tech world which, more and more, is centering in little ol’Boulder, Colorado.

6. @jeffrey

7. @bfeld

8. @jaygaddis He even writes, on occasion, for elephant. Great guy, says what he thinks, is all about community, being a good man (he coaches men) and waking up.

9. @bogusky

10. @tcabeen A gentleman who I know more virtually than really (the only time I met him really is when he tweeted he was at a cafe, I went to said cafe to meet him, mentioned twitter and got free cup of joe, which inspired me to buy huge cinnamon roll). Always tweeting about Boulder things of interest.

11. @brettgreene is my Spinal Tap number eleven choice—he’s sweet, he’s savvy, he’s a twitterific gun-for-hire and he’s a good, genuine man in a sea of social media sharks.

EC. @elephantjournal ~ elephantjournal, despite our local involvement and RTing, may belong more on this list. We’re focused on “the mindful life”—living green and politically and spiritually and physically-active lives—so probably 75% of our tweets aren’t about Boulder. Still, they’re of Boulder…reflecting our values—and we’re doing well nationally, as reflected in our being named to two Top Ten Green Twitter Lists in only our third month after getting on Twitter/Tweetdeck.