Never heard of Twitter? Then this is the entry for you.
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Think text messages online, or Facebook without everything but the status updates. Sound awful? Possibly so, but once you start, you’ll be dragged in.
Dragged in much like a handful of UK based celebrities and famous names, who seem to have appeared in their numbers over the last few weeks. Firstly, Jonathan Ross (@Wossy) made his entrance, and is currently sitting at just under 10,000 followers. He recently has donned a detective hat and, with a mobile phone in hand, has been texting and calling those on his address book to find out who has signed up, and who has never heard of it (see the list below).
He’s also doing a good job of spotting fake profiles, unmasking the liars due to his celebrity connections. One of the names on that list is 50% of Mitchell and Webb, David Mitchell (@RealDMitchell), who is still on his first few tweets, but is, at time of writing, already being ‘followed’ by 1500 other Twitter users.
Alan Carr (@AlanCarr) was also found, having been tweeting for a while, and is starting to gain many more names thanks to Ross. Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) has been on the site for a while, which is no surprise. Robert Llewellyn (@bobbyllew) is also a keen user, John Cleese (@JohnCleese), star of Fawlty Towers and Monty Python amongst many other things, and Graham Linehan (@Glinner), writer of Father Ted and The IT Crowd are also both keen tweeters.
Ross also seems keen to get other celebrity friends to start tweeting, such as his old pal Russell Brand (see below), as well as Chris Moyles, David Baddiel, Frankie Boyle, Ricky Gervais, Jimmy Carr, Jeremy Clarkson, and possibly even Eddie Izzard.
And this is just British names and faces, you can follow (soon to be) President Obama, Britney Spears, Kevin Rose, all sorts of other US names and faces. They’re not hard to find. Now seems to be a good time to jump on the bandwagon before it “does a Myspace” and caves in on its own unique crapness.
p.s. you can even follow me! (@krist69)
5th edit: 26/01/09: You can now also follow:
Russell Brand (@rustyrockets)
Rob Brydon (@RealRobBrydon)
Dave Gorman (@Dave_Gorman)
Andy Murray (@andy_murray)
Jamie Oliver (@jamieoliver08)
Andi Peters (@xxandip)
Phillip Schofield (@schofe)
Peter Serafinowicz (@serafinowicz)
Danny Wallace (@misterwallace)
I’ve heard some good things about this blog. Remember to balance the pics with the text tho :) but over all very nice post, keep up the good work