Up late on the East coast last night, I watched the anticipation build on Twitter as Mr. Demi Moore‘s number of followers approached 1,000,000.
Among the people I’m following it seemed to be a hot topic. The majority of people seemed to be pulling for him, tweeting things like “Follow @aplusk go, do it now!!” and “Yeah baby, @aplusk is gonna do it! This is awesome!!!!1″
A smaller group seemed to collectively sigh and declare the end of Twitter as we know it. They said things like “Great, Twitter has officially hit the mainstream” and “Why should I follow these celebs when they hardly follow anyone back?” These folks seemed to share an overall feeling that people like Kutcher just don’t get it.
In case you haven’t been following, CNN and Kutcher were competing for publicity and to raise awareness of the Malaria No More charity.
I’ll admit, when I first heard about it I was annoyed, seeing as Ashton only follows 79 people back, the majority of them other celebs.
Of course it’s wonderful when a famous person uses their high profile to do something charitable. I think my irritation stemmed from looking at it in the bigger picture of what social media is supposed to be about. How can one person connect with even a small percentage of that number–especially when they are not returning the favor of a follow?
However, although I decided not to participate in the numbers game, it was cool to see this Twitter milestone go down live. Going mainstream, jumping the shark, whatever you want to call it–it represents a turning point in this wild world of new media.
In the end, something I re-tweeted from Joel Comm sums up my feeling best:
@aplusk is the first to reach 1,000,000 Twitter followers. Yes, it was a stunt. But first is first.
Some people don’t want Twitter to get any bigger than it is, but why not? We all agree it’s a fantastic connecting tool.
And if this helps drive people like Oprah to use social media as a channel to do good things, well then who can argue with that?
Photo Credit: dpstyles
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I fail to see the appeal to have so many followers. I have over 2000 and wouldnt mind having much more, but 1,000,000? It is amazing to see how much Twitter has grown since it started.
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I fail to see why anyone would worry about twitter going mainstream or about Ashton Kutcher’s success or number of celebrities he is following.
Twitter is a personal communication tool. Follow who you want, block others out of your noise. Easy enough.
I followed aplusk, because I wanted him to donate to malaria. I don’t expect him to follow me back. He doesn’t know me. Just like I don’t follow back everyone who follows me. Just because I tweet something they want (or they want to spam me), does not me vice versa.
As someone who has used twitter to build relationships for several business ventures, I am in between the “personally connect with everyone I follow” and “gimme more followers” model. I visit the profile of every follower I get. If they are genuine, I follow with a personal note.
If not, I ignore their follow and figure they’ll probably drop off later anyway, in their search for the perfect spam ratio.
Twitter can be as focused as a phone or as general as a public forum. It is up to each user to find their comfort zone and not worry about others’ zones.
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@Carla–Yes, the number is staggering to think of. Following one person? How in the world could that ever be manageable? Now that @Oprah is on board, Twitter is just sky-rocketing.
@TheSoMeEx–I hear your points. I also visit everyone’s profile before I decide to follow them. I like the distinguishing between Twitter being used as a phone or a public forum–good way to explain it.
Wow ! Nice Ms.Christine ! Is there any specific reason why celebrities chose Twitter much instead of other social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace more ?
Cheers !
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