Guest Post- The Post-Geekdominant Twitterverse

December 5, 2008 · Comments

Shaq by Dr. Mark Drapeau

Shaquille O’Neal’s embrace of Twitter as a way to connect with his fans got me thinking – what would the Twitterverse be like if it were not dominated by geeks? People who aren’t geeks, geek wannabes, or geek fans more than likely haven’t heard of Twitter. But at some point that will change. The conversational technology and vision of Twitter has created a simple, logical, and useful way for people and their ideas to connect. Whether it is Twitter per se, or a competing or successor service, at some point the Twitterverse will be dominated by non-geeks.

Perusing the most followed individual people on Twitter, however, it is obvious that most of them are gearheads – the list includes everyone from cewebrities like Leo Laporte, startup whiz kids like Kevin Rose, personalities like Justine Ezarik, reporters like Veronica Belmont, and analysts like Jeremiah Owyang. This pattern holds true well down into the bottom of the Top 100 list, with names like Fred Wilson, Brian Solis, and Jeff Pulver appearing. Many initial Twitter users knew who these people were. But now, the average new Twitter user has probably never heard of any of these “most popular people on Twitter.”

The fact that geeks dominate the most followed list is not so much because they add tremendous value and engage in great conversations (though some do), but rather a consequence of people in the tech community being aware of Twitter before most anyone else, self-organizing a hierarchy, and talking amongst themselves. But I suspect that this ‘geekdominance’ will not last too much longer – frankly, many people in the Twitterholic Top 100 are not that interesting to the average person. So who will be the LEDs to their light bulbs?

Mainstream journalists and other media personalities are certainly beginning to understand the power of social technologies like Twitter. Rick Sanchez of CNN has nearly 34,000 followers. Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC also hold respectable positions among the most followed people. Average people can relate to mainstream media personalities, and these personalities tend to add value through their reporting or opinions. To be sure, mainstream media will begin to use Twitter more and more effectively; Clayton Morris from FNC’s Fox & Friends Weekend is a great example, posing questions to the home audience during the show and genuinely engaging in conversations about topics. Locally in Washington DC, Fox 5 anchor Brian Bolter uses Twitter frequently and even during his broadcasts (see this and this two minutes later in order to get ideas for stories, advertise upcoming coverage, and just to chat with people.

Who else? I think that the big, mainstream trend among Twitter users in 2009 will be interacting with “real celebrities” using this and other tools to directly connect with fans and exhibit their personalities and daily lives. Shaq is the perfect person to bring the advantages of social technology to a more mainstream audience. As his popularity on Twitter is perhaps unprescedented – he’s accumulated over 14,000 followers in well less than a month. But also notable among the most followed Twitter users are Shaq’s “precursors” MC Hammer and Dave Matthews. Using social technologies will not work for all celebrities, to be sure – celebrities who are very shy, or stalker-prone, or boring, and so forth are not naturals for this medium. Some notables have crashed and burned. But I can think of many interesting, well-known people whom I would like to become more ambiently aware of – let’s just start with Tom Green, Conan O’Brian, Ben Folds, Rivers Cuomo, Keith Richards, Jim Gaffigan, Dolph Lundgren, Christopher Hitchens, Paris Hilton, Prince William, Dave Chappelle, Victoria Zdrok, Eminem, Brad Pitt, Bam Margera, Natalie Portman, James Woods, Kristin Wiig, Megan Fox, Kevin Smith, Kevin Bacon, Quentin Tarantino, Mark Wahlberg, Robin Williams, Michael Jackson, Anthony Bourdain, Madonna, Leo DiCaprio, Tom Wolfe, Hugh Hefner, Winona Rider, and Flight of the Conchords.

But ultimately, I think that the real winner is you. If your words are compelling, if you add value to conversations, people will listen to you, talk with you, and chat about you. Whether you plan it or not, you will build a personal brand – and I think personal brands are great for entrepreneurial personalities. Jim Long, a Washington DC-based cameraman for NBC, is also on the most-followed list. Why? Not because he’s a celebrity. Because he is a nice person with a cool job that takes him to interesting locations, and he has embraced Twitter as a great way to interact with people. Gary Vaynerchuk, a wine expert, uses the force of his personality and intellect to evangelize about his wine business and other topics he is passionate about. These two people, and many more less well known, use Twitter to execute against their resume, to enhance what they already do using new social technologies. And if you have interesting things to say, you can do it too.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is a biological scientist, government consultant, and writer for Mashable.com and other venues. These views are entirely his own and do not represent the official views of any organization.

Photo credit, T. Young

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  • Wow. This is brilliant.
    Kind of tragic in a way - because we know that when the 'mainstream' rushes in, the early-adopters and geek set tend to drift away - but inevitable, I guess.

    I'm not so much as thrilled at the idea of 'interacting with celebrities just because they are celebrities and I can' but I'm not the norm, either. I followed and continue to follow people like Wil Wheaton & MC Hammer because they are interesting and intelligent and use the space well. Colbert? Unfollowed for lack of use. Shaq? Unfollowed for lack of personal interest. In the end, the beauty of Twitter has always been for me that the quality of a person's interaction determined the conversations... age was irrelevant - people from 15 to 70's on my list... fame was irrelevant - people from all walks of life... where they are, what they look like, how much money they make? not important compared to what they said.

    Looks like that will get drowned out by 'how cool are you in pop culture terms?' and that's depressing from my standpoint. But I guess that's the price of success.
    Congrats to Twitter on their success.
  • I would agree with Lucretia. Although I do follow some very well known folks, it's because they provide great information concerning things I'm interested in and/or I was already following them online before twitter (blogs, news etc.) It's not realistic to expect someone with 14k followers to have good conversation with all of them, so at that point I think value comes primarily from the information they provide. It will be interesting to see what information the general public finds interesting enough to follow, and which celebs deliver it.
  • Well, the good thing is, these platforms allow for full self-selection and opt-in. I'll probably never follow celebrities, but I can choose to follow anyone that interests me, and ignore the rest - and vice-versa. Any legitimate form of self-expression and networking that drives social media adoption is probably a plus, in the long run.
  • Thanks for thinking ahead. Nice post. Big companies will leverage Twitter for multiple and innovative objectives.
    1)DELL is using it to announce DEALS - as a Social Media Alert System for Deals.
    2)JetBlue is using it to announce Flight Delays, Logistic news,Ticket Reminders, Cancellations. They are also using twitter to answer questions .
    3)DIGG uses it to announce there new shows and crowdsource questions - like they did for Al-Gore.

    We have created a Interactive flash on how 5 different companies are using twitter. And we have digged old tweets and shown them
    http://vizedu.com/2008/12/5-companies-using-twi...

    We have created
  • Here is a list of top100 Twitterholics based on Followers http://twitterholic.com/top100/followers/
    Chris is number 21 with 23,736 followers as of today.
  • Don't forget about the Heroes cast. @greggrunberg and @breagrant do a nice job of interacting with people through Twitter. @greggrunberg even posts some behind the scenes set shots from his iPhone. Fun stuff!
  • Great post... thought-provoking. I think this line says it best:

    >> But ultimately, I think that the real winner is you.

    There is a big IF after this line, about the quality of your posts, but it's true... the CNN and MSNBC and celebrity people might have huge followings, and entertain and inform, but Twitter gives a voice to the nobodies out there, and allow them to become somebodies...

    @jasonalba
  • Barrack Obama also established quite a following on Twitter but it was soon discovered a great majority of his posts were bots. In similar fashion, Britney Spears is on Twitter, but she allows others to ghost tweet using her account. I just hope as more celebrities use Twitter, the authenticity does not diminish. That's where the real value is... not how many followers, how many following, how many updates... just authenticity.
  • Fantastic post with a lot of intellect and thought.

    Chewing on it for a bit, my initial assumption of mainstream getting a hold of Twitter will not really push us gearheads away from Twitter, but will instead push us away from mainstream. It'll make us want to be segregated into our geeky group that we've always been accustomed to since adoption. We can't possibly reach out to other niches of people that don't understand what Google Reader or a Kindle is. Can we?

    Your points, Dr., shows us that we can - albeit may be hard initially for us to stretch our boundaries. Aside from mainstream celebs that are using it now, there's a plethora of people and niches that have yet to form within Twitter and as you said, they eventually will. We can easily stay buried in our iphone and blackberry filled hole but what value would we bring to the community if we shun non-geeks. It'll be a transition and a tough one for some but in the end it's going to truly show Twitter's power of connecting PEOPLE, not geeks.

    Appreciate the thought-provoking post!
  • jen
    i'm a new non-geek adopter, not into tech-y things at all. interesting post, but i'm not sure i agree with your point about celebrities. i use twitter for two main purposes: to be connected to friends and to get news and info -- not just from media sources (though i do like @fox5newsedge) but also as an alternative to msm. in other words, pretty much the same reasons i use other forms of social networking.

    for me, twitter is "post-blog." it's even bloggier than blogs. it's more populist, more current, less time- and resource-intensive ... all the reasons why blogs were such a revolution compared with traditional publishing. before i joined twitter i had largely stopped reading and writing blogs for a number of reasons. now i'm reading and commenting on your blog because i followed a twitter link; it's a very different way of interacting with the blogosphere.
  • I'm surprised that there aren't more celebrities using Twitter, specifically ones involved in causes such as Brad Pitt. He uses traditional media and PR to promote his Make It Right foundation. As we all know, the current populace of Twitter are ambassadors for good ideas.
    As the rest of the population begins to discover Twitter, it's likely many of us who have been in since the beginning will be more guarded about Following, using alternate user names, or looking for other services, to keep our neighborhood noise down. But it will be an okay trade off to see SoMe expand to the masses and foster more communication.
  • Dr. Drapeu

    What Twitter does best, I think, is strip down the walls that we often build online.

    Perhaps because of its simplicity and brevity, it's much easier to tweet snippets of what's going on in friends' heads: an interesting comment on some part of life, a link to what's fascinating or to just engage in stimulating or entertaining conversation. That's not easy with the "macro-blogging" or other traditional web platforms.

    The ambient intimacy which Twitter provides is what makes it such a pliant agent for an almost infinite array of human connection: from marketing, to entertainment, to personal connection and on and on.

    This is why Twitter is a game-changer: it gets us away from the static web to a stream of human connection. As the nongeeks figure this out (they will because they're WAY smarter and more interesting than we early adopters), Twitter will sing its best notes.

    Anybody else feel this way? Am I overzealous with Twitter's potential? Is Twitter the game-changer for the web?

    Thanks Mark for your perspective. I've always though that the healthcare community, not the techies, had within it the power to show the world what social media is really all about. Makes me proud. :)

    Phil
    Twitter Deflowered
  • Thanks for the comments everyone, glad to hear people liked the article! This was certainly not meant to be "anti-geek" as I think they will always have a place in tech! But most people are not geeks, so what might they want out of Twitter? Who will be the "most popular" non-geeks in the future? And who will "average people" want to follow or chat with? I think that the answers to these questions have far-reaching implications for everything from personal social networks to corporate business models. Mark
  • I've taken to Twittering at the nudging (ok, shoving) of our interactive department, as well as somoe social media biz dev. guys, and I am now just beginning to get it. I find it an interesting time; to be a non-geek early adopter wielding a so-called "geek comm. tool." It will be interesting, and entertaining, to see what our new generation of commoners can do with Twitter and where it will take all of us. The best part of Twitter are blogs like Brogan's, that are THE actual operating instructions. It's like learning how to drive a car real time with a heads-up display in your windshield. We might crash and burn from time-to-time, but we'll only get better. Full speed ahead!
  • jen
    what phil said. that's what i was trying to say.
  • Plain and simple, Twitter is the bomb. Before you know what every single celebrity and sports star will be on there. It would be nice if they would all interact with their fans. This could really be shown in this one correction in all these people are going in. They're definitely trying to be more personal and less stuck up.
  • I think Phil said it best! I also think the election already showed the mainstream what Twitter can do and it was also the busiest Twitter day. Celebs may start to encourage their fans to join Twitter, but it will depend on how well they embrace it. As @THE_REAL_SHAQ has shown, there is a huge difference between direct engagement with fans and having your publicist send out Tweets a la @BritneySpears. Hopefully, those celebs that do join will follow Shaq'd example.
  • I keep on reading about the the successor to Twitter....but it seems that Twitter has gotten past its problems of mid-year and is much more stable. Plus, Twitter is "quoted" everywhere! I don't see that with other MicroBlogging sites.
  • Are we really geeks? I thought we were cool and on the edge.
  • Hey! James Woods is on Twitter. I'm just not the James Woods this post is referring to.

    I use my middle initial in all things writerly because I hate seeing a celebrity name on a product and wondering - even for just a second - if it's really that celebrity's name when it isn't. I thought about using a pen name, but I'm too proud of who I am and where I come from (both my dad and his dad have 'James' in their name).
  • I think one of the interesting aspects of this article is whether or not Twitter will continue to be able to serve as an egalitarian social network where "personal" information is shared.

    If Twitter goes in the direction of being a platform for self-promotion (the dominant meme right now) and/or serves as a way to "peek in" on the life of a celebrity or someone in the public eye, then what happens to the average person?

    What I've seen is this: they move to Facebook for posting status updates. This is what several of my friends who dipped their toes in the Twitter water decided to do.

    I believe a lot of everyday people posting tweets about being bored, stuck in traffic, playing with their kids, or working on a personal project will gravitate more toward Facebook, where they have a more insular and intimate network of people to whom those types of updates are more appropriate.

    It makes sense - I've stopped following some of the "top Twitterers" because I didn't know them well enough to get much out of their tweets about being stuck in traffic or having sick kids.

    Twitter then becomes a place where you feel more compelled to post engaging content that appeals to a mass audience so you can "build a personal brand" as Dr. Drapeau describes. If the goal on Twitter becomes to build a personal brand though, how much does it become depersonalized? I think Twitter will become people's "branding" channel and Facebook the channel where they actually post "personal" information.

    This isn't a bad thing per se, except in that it will limit Twitter's growth and it will be interesting how they respond. That $500 million that Facebook offered to buy them may become more tantalizing if it's still on the table down the road.
  • Rob Crissinger
    Unless I missed them, none of the famous, non-geek people mentioned in this post have commented here yet. I'll be checking back to see if any of them do. Come on Shaquille O'Neal, MC Hammer, what are your thoughts on the future of Twitter?
  • No one is going to get drowned out on twitter. The nature of twitter is that you follow what you are interested in personally and others do the same. If you are interesting to someone they will follow you regardless of status or outside popularity, although celebrity status will just give you a higher relative follower count than others, you will still remain in your normal real world social meme, whatever normal means to you.
  • Hey Mark,

    Good post/article. However, part of me wonders if next year the twitter top ten will be dominated by celebrities and mainstream media folks, much the way the iTunes podcast top 100 is now. Which means, there will be less opportunity for discovery and self-promotion for the new twitter user.

    The podcast analogy may not apply as much to Twitter, but I can't help thinking that the adoption of new media conversation tools by mainstream organizations usually drain the "magic" out of these grass roots communication channels over time. At least for me.

    The other concern I have about this mainstream attention to Twitter is pressure or opportunity (depends how you look at it) for advertising and new features.

    Twitter works for me because it's ad free and simple to use. I would hate to see this change.
  • Ultimately Celebs will find the Twitter platform empowering.... we have grown to a society that consumes "sensationalism" served up by a media that has lost contact with the "heartbeat" of the communities (2.0) and people of today. Witness the election and how it was framed and reported. We saw right through it and they never knew or even perceived it until the results came in. Half truths... none truths, no research and opinion dominate the "perception" of whom the celebrity is and then it's looped and becomes in many cases a false reality. Twitter allows the celeb to be himself in real time. Express thoughts , exchange ideas and participate in "real conversations" with "real people" who are living "real lives" on a day to day basis. It makes the media accountable for it's actions (stories) and creates a base of friends and followers that interacts with the celeb on a regular basis that will pounce on lazy sensationalist. Check the Celebs twitter streams for current up to date info and answers. Twitter makes the celeb human again. Accessible, not from some far off planet that has no emotions, no family, no pain, no joy and only openings, screenings, concerts and closings. The era of the "image" is dying. Twitter will also expose the depth of your intellect one way or the other. Well read and current on politics and culture your tweets will reflect it. Ignorant and shallow it will also be apparent. Who is it ? that is willing to be a "character" developed, manipulated and controlled by the "puppet masters". If the celeb can embrace (function) being "real again" and not hiding behind PR and marketing, then Twitter is a Godsend. It's not for everybody. Some can never come out of "character" and have needs of the "Wizard" behind the curtain. Not for the shy !!! But if you are game.... What fun !!! Transparency at it's best. Living the "Tweet Life".
  • Interesting take! One of the things I like about Twitter is the mix of "twitterati", "geek elite" , "mainstream" celebrities and "regular folks", with some folks - @wilw for example - blurring the celebrity geek line completely. (I use geek as a compliment, btw).

    With the retweeting and random followings leading to miscellaneous connections, I don't always remember how I originally connected to the avatar I may be exchanging 140 character quips with.

    I like the way this somewhat evens things out - prominent businessmen/women, editors of top periodicals/blogs, artists, musicians, freelancers, biological scientist-government consultant-writers, stay at home parents and the unemployed all finding ways to related to each other . . . six degrees of separation in action!
  • I agree with Mark and MC Hammer--celebrities are starting to make the jump to Twitter. The mashup celebritytweet.com shows a timeline of only celebrities' tweets, along with links to their handles, so people can follow them individually. The range of celebrities varies quite a bit, as well as how they use twitter: @Borat [Sagdiyev] tweets in character ("very nice!"), @britneyspears's ghost writer doesn't even try to tweet in the first person (refreshing honesty), and @TinaFey tweets about the funny, mundane things in life that remind us that we're all human, e.g. "Somewhere a man named Barack Obama sits on a toilet and thinks the same thing I do: I need to trim my toe nails."

    Whether it's for concert updates, random thoughts, or politics, I think celebrities are a "brand" that will be a growing force on Twitter in '09. Let's hope the majority of them use the tool as a personal--not corporate--brand (ahem, Ms. Spears...or Sen. Clinton).
  • Phil Baumann, re: Twitter "strips down the walls"... absolutely! One thing to add: it's ability to cross platforms - you don't just Twitter from your laptop or computer, but by text message, iPod Touch, etc. - is its most powerful element. With the age of the smartphone becoming a reality (Techradar: http://tinyurl.com/a3jj49), brevity is king.

    About celebrities being on microblogs... I think they'll catch on, too. I'd love to see Marky Mark on Twitter as well. And someone should start a Christopher Walken and Chuck Norris quote machine on Twitter (if it's not already been done! Must investigate.) I never liked Shaq before he came on Twitter... now with his personality shining through, I think he's AWESOME. Twitter definitely broke down the walls between him and fans by the direct communication to us. Very cool.
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  • I love the fact that Twitter works up and down the spectrum – celebrities can be seen as “real” people and real people can develop an almost instant feeling of celebrity status on Twitter. I think these two trends will collide in ways not yet imagined. It’s interesting that we as a society tend to follow celebrities from afar and “feel like” we know them. How will people deal with the fact that they might actually be able to have conversations with these celebs? And conversely, how will ordinary people deal with having hundreds or even thousands of people following them – much like a celebrity does? I honestly can’t wait to find out. Thanks Mark, for the thought-provoking post!
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