Oprah may be the most powerful woman on the planet, but even she must bow to the might of Twitter.
Wait! Wait! We know, you see the word "Twitter" and reflexively cringe. "Oh, great," you say, "another late-to-the-party story about how Twitter is all the rage with Ashton Kutcher and Larry King, or maybe a snarky column by some insecure newspaper stooge complaining that Twitter is turning us into narcissistic cyber-zombies, 140 characters at a time."
It's not like that. We have to come praise Twitter, not to bury it.
Because once you wade through the waves of Twitter hype, and the backlash against the hype and the backlash against the backlash, the reality is that Twitter's just a tool, like a telephone. Except back in Alexander Graham Bell's day, there was no Oprah telling everyone to give Watson a call.
Whether it's being used to spread fear and uncertainty about the swine flu ("FACT: Swine flu will ONLY infect humans who eat pork from Mexico" advises one misinformed Twit-wit) or tell us what Shaquille O'Neal had for lunch ("grill chkn breast and a salad"), it's now nigh-on impossible to avoid hearing about Twitter.
And that's one of the challenges facing the explosively growing micro-blogging service, which allows its 14 million-plus users to broadcast short online messages, or "tweets", to anyone who cares to log in and listen.
Twitter, the media phenomenon, is becoming bigger than Twitter, the simple and unassuming communication tool. And while its growth is surging, new Nielsen statistics suggest at least 30% of the people who join the service each month lose interest and are gone by the following month.
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Wait! Wait! We know, you see the word "Twitter" and reflexively cringe. "Oh, great," you say, "another late-to-the-party story about how Twitter is all the rage with Ashton Kutcher and Larry King, or maybe a snarky column by some insecure newspaper stooge complaining that Twitter is turning us into narcissistic cyber-zombies, 140 characters at a time."
It's not like that. We have to come praise Twitter, not to bury it.
Because once you wade through the waves of Twitter hype, and the backlash against the hype and the backlash against the backlash, the reality is that Twitter's just a tool, like a telephone. Except back in Alexander Graham Bell's day, there was no Oprah telling everyone to give Watson a call.
Whether it's being used to spread fear and uncertainty about the swine flu ("FACT: Swine flu will ONLY infect humans who eat pork from Mexico" advises one misinformed Twit-wit) or tell us what Shaquille O'Neal had for lunch ("grill chkn breast and a salad"), it's now nigh-on impossible to avoid hearing about Twitter.
And that's one of the challenges facing the explosively growing micro-blogging service, which allows its 14 million-plus users to broadcast short online messages, or "tweets", to anyone who cares to log in and listen.
Twitter, the media phenomenon, is becoming bigger than Twitter, the simple and unassuming communication tool. And while its growth is surging, new Nielsen statistics suggest at least 30% of the people who join the service each month lose interest and are gone by the following month.
Read More....
