Twitter is slowly but surely morphing from a niche service used only by technology bloggers and industry people into a full-blown, mainstream phenomenon. And no group is more mainstream and prone to latch onto the latest trend than celebrities. Which is why Twitter is suddenly finding favor amongst the great and good.

There have been increasing signs of late that Twitter is breaking out of its niche and into the mainstream. This time last year, if you’d have asked most people if they were on Twitter you’d have got a “What’s Twitter?” response. Now, most people would at least know what it is even if they haven’t yet taken the plunge and sent their first Tweet.

Just last week it was reported how Twitter had grown an enormous amount in the past year, with the UK in particular adopting the service, pushing it above Digg in terms of traffic for the first time. And no sooner does it take off in a big way than the celebs invade the space in order to keep their fans updated on what they had for dinner or when they last used the toilet.

To be fair, that’s what most people use Twitter for, detailing their lives to the nth degree with the occasional gem or link keeping interest levels going. At least with celebrities, we may actually be bothered about what they had for dinner or what their last number two was like.

BBC News reports how Jonathan Ross, a British celebrity who has been embroiled in a controversy surrounding comments made on his BBC radio show is now using Twitter. He actually used the service to announce he would be hosting this year’s Bafta Awards. He claims to prefer it over Facebook because the latter overwhelms him. Twitter means he’s in control.

Stephen Fry is another British celebrity who uses Twitter extensively, so much so that he is in the top ten for having most users, 63,634 at the last count. Fry Tweets often, and has even used the micro-blogging service as a way of ripping into both the Sony Vaio and the RIM Blackberry Storm.

Twitter is perfect for celebrities, including politicians and the like, because it allows them to update their legions of followers without actually having to communicate on a one-to-one basis. No longer do they have to employ someone to build and maintain a Web site for them, or keep an eye on their Facebook or MySpace pages. Now they can just Tweet at their leisure.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, January 28th, 2009 at 4:09 am under Internet, Opinion, Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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