It's a celebrity on Twitter! Pee yourselves!

Over the last four or five months the number of celebrity tweeters on Twitter has increased significantly, some have arrived through a love of technology others have appeared due to PR campaigns.

What's interesting is that the moment that one of our esteemed representatives of film or usually TV joins the community it's like a dog running around the playground while you're trying to learn basic English history.

Dour, normally sensible posters become gibbering with excitement falling over themselves to ingratiate, be funny at or generally grab the attention of the celeb involved. One person felt the need to tweet how grateful they were for Phillip Schofield acknowledging their message of support. You wonder if this is a hangover from him and Gordon the Gopher never reading out their letter in the Broom Cupboard.


Stephen Fry, whose number of followers means that one day he will own Twitter, while thousands of people live in constant hope of DMing him an invite to their dinner party, manages it quite well. He usually very sweetly thanks people and shares his everyday life (which mainly consists of going to far-off places to make TV shows and complaining about PCs) in a series of amusing tweets and pics. It doesn't take much to see that Stephen is gradually using Twitter to increase his market base, as does his blog and podcasts. He's the ultimate 2.0 self-publicising bloke and he's doing it very well indeed. Jonathan Ross recently joined is clearly enjoying himself too. Was it recommended by his PR company post Sachsgate? John Cleese is irreverant and amusing but never seems to want to tweet about the blonde bint he's now boffing.

Other celebs don't contribute so much. Terry Wogan seems to have disappeared, it if ever was him. Jeremy Clarkson stopped altogether on the 5th of January. Alan Carr about a week ago. It seems that for some celebs the idea of giving stalkers exactly what they want is a little too much and probably too time-consuming.

So, the celeb effect will certainly draw further interest from the public in Twitter, which for the company is a good thing, but the community will need greater subject and poster grouping tools to keep all your work, hobby, sex and celeb streams straight. If you want all that information...

See, my greatest problem with Twitter is apathy. You've updated your blog - CONGRATS. You're explaining how Twitter works to a {polite but ultimately disinterested} TV presenter - WOO HOO. You've posted some new pics of your cat to Flickr - FOR GOD'S SAKE MAKE IT STOP. You've told everyone that your partner is the world's greatest lover - at this point I usually have to shut down Twitter or risk throwing my monitor on the floor and kicking it, and any nearby animals, to death.

But is the celeb effect enough to keep me there? Time will tell and yesterday was a great example, Robert Llewellyn posted that there was definitely going to be some new Red Dwarf, which is a good thing.

John on Twitter