Twitter

So, Lady Gaga has recently hit 20 millions followers on facebook....

20 MILLION ( almost a third of the population of Britain)

The other most popular twitter accounts are fellow pop stars Justin Bieber (18 million), Katy Perry (15.7 million) and Shakira (14.5 million).
Lady Gaga is one of the only large stars who actually write their own tweets, many celebrities actually have other people do it and so fans feels personally connected.

Twitter in itself is massive, easily catching up with the popularity of Facebook, although it is much simpler, "tweets" are limited to 140 figures and unlike Facebook you don't have groups, games etc...
So why has it gained so much popularity, unlike Faceook it is home to a mass of celebrities who ( or whoever they have doing it) tweet regularly and use it as a way to talk directly to their fan....

- Twitter has approximately 225 million users and rapidly growing.
- About 200 million tweets are sent each day. In January of 2009, users sent two million Tweets a day, and in 2010, they posted 65 million a day

Clearly over the few years it has been active it is gaining popularity and I dont see it stopping anytime soon, but what is it in for the average person? I use Twitter to write random thoughts I wouldnt do on Facebook ( I only have 70-odd followers, so I feel like i can talk rubbish without people thinking im weird) You can also write about anything, and it is easy to do, you can pick it up almost instantly.
Unlike Facebook you can, as a major selling point once again, see what celebrities have to say, you can retweet them and show your friends what amuses you.

I just found this - Why Twitter is Popular and I thinksomeof the points he makes are true, things I would add would that be unlike Facebook, the limit in number makes peoples tweets more interesting, no long rambles moaning about boyfriends of school. People have a limited amount of characters and so people put more effort it about what they write, trying to be funny or simply getting to the point.
Populairyt is something people craze on Twitter, i see many retweets from celebrities of fans who " Im your biggest fan, a retweet from you would make my day xoxox" People seem to craze followers and so again try to write more interesting tweets.... this was something i started off doing until I got bored and realised I wasnt actually very funny haha.
You can also contact a lot of television programs via Twitter, using hash tags which programs will often ask to use as you state your opinions in a tweet, and everyone would love to get a mention on the tv.


On a more personal note we have been using Twitter for this module, it allows people to comment on lectures or anything to do with technology and removes the "schloary" feel of a lecture, making it more easygoing and people more comfortable expressing their ideas.

I think twitter will continue to grow and flourish,but i also think that if celebrities suddenly lost interest or a new, more simple format came out, that the popularity would greatly diminish.