Hi, I've been struggling to get followers on Google Plus and Twitter, and recently stumbled upon twiends.com. It offers an easy service that allows you to get twitter followers very quickly.  Is this considered black hating?  Even if Google doesn't consider the followers as valid, am I likely to be punished if using their service?  Even if it doesn't help rankings, it is nice to have lots of followers so that they will see my tweets which has the potential to drive more traffic to my site, and give awareness to my business. What are your thoughts?

I just created my first press release at prlog.org using the free account, which lets you have one outgoing followed link. Question:  Should I link to my press releases from my web site?  I made the mistake of doing link exchanges in the past, and worried Google would detect it as a link exchange.  It would be nice to link to the press releases on my site while still getting the benefits of having an incoming link from a site with PR 6. Is prlog.org a good site for press releases?  Is there another one you recommend that is free or inexpensive?  Is there any benefits to using multiple press release sites, with different content on each site? Thanks!!!