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A Wit and to Woo - Twitter
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Stephen Fry is an actor, presenter, director and unofficial national treasure, but what you may not know is the phenomenon that is his ranking on social blogging site Twitter. Fry is number two in the world with over 150,000 followers, second only to Barack Obama, whom he will soon overtake at his current rate of growth.
Views on Twitter vary between enthusiasts who chat away endlessly on the site, to those who absolutely cannot see the point. But to understand this or any other internet-based phenomenon, you have to consider the history and development of computing as a whole, from grey boxes in air-conditioned rooms in the Seventies to the all-pervading force that now touches everyone’s lives.
This journey formed the basis of Fry’s talk at the Apple Store in Regent Street, as part of their ‘Meet the Author’ series. Fry is a well-known gadget freak and Apple enthusiast, having purchased the second Apple Macintosh in the UK (his friend and Hitchhiker’s Guide author Douglas Adams bought the first). Fry explained he was giving his talk in exchange for Apple products, and proceeded to deliver a highly engaging and anecdote-strewn potted history of computing.
Fry is definitely his own man, and will speak his opinions loud and clear in the search for universal truth and beauty, which is one reason for his popularity on Twitter. He sets strict guidelines for how he uses the site, explaining that he only responds when inspired to do so, and apologises profusely that the large number of his followers means he cannot be everyone’s friend, all the time.
He promises that he will not use Twitter to commercially promote anything directly other than via oblique references to a television series that he is filming. But to follow Fry is to learn about endangered species, that he likes to walk for exercise while listening to talking books, and that straight after the event at the Apple Store, he got stuck in a lift for half an hour. He posted pictures as evidence which made their way into several national newspapers.
The question and answer section of his talk was even more illuminating. His gift is to make his point and then back it up with historical and literary perspective. Asked if he thought the kids of today spent too much time on the internet, he explained that all through history ones elders and betters were complaining similarly.
Before the internet, it was about time wasted watching TV; before that, the radio was seen as a pointless distraction, and in the 19th Century novelists such as Jane Austen were regarded as facile and lacking in educational merit.
Asked what Oscar Wilde would have thought of Twitter, Fry’s guess was that Wilde would have been enchanted by the beauty and simplicity of the new system and would have been engaged totally, but without any particular agenda, as is Fry himself.
Even more interesting than the talk was the demographic of the audience and Fry’s interaction with them after the event. Most people were in their twenties, and Fry engaged each of them personally, signing long messages on books and scraps of paper, and happily having his photograph taken with them. Some gave him little notes, not with phone numbers, but with their Twitter ‘handles’, hoping that Stephen would follow them.
I asked my own Twitter friends what benefits they received from the site. Alan Stevens, who provides media training and consultancy to CEOs, considers it the best recession-beating business tool he has come across, having received more business directly from Twitter in the last month than from all sources in the previous quarter.
Business author Ian Sanders uses Twitter for the promotion of his new book Juggle and secured a lucrative speaking engagement in Texas. Claire Richmond, who runs the site Find a TV Expert explains that if you work alone, the ‘tweets’ give you a sense of having people around you, like the buzz of an office.
For enthusiasts, Twitter means they can successfully build their on-line brands as they choose, based on regular and direct interaction with fans and customers. So perhaps we are entering a new era of genuine celebrity, not based on cynicism massaged by Photoshop and public relations, but on curiosity and positive engagement with the world, an agenda also shared by the producers of television programme Qi.
As William Wordsworth himself might have Twittered: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven!”
Stephen Fry’s talk at the Apple Store is available as podcast on iTunes here: http://tinyurl.com/aukzoe |
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