Brittany Spears and Guy Kawasaki

Brittany Spears and Guy Kawasaki — now there is a pair for you.  What do they have in common?  They both top the list of Twitter users.  Brittany is the Top Celebrity user of Twitter and Guy is the Most Influential Twitterer — sending over 30 tweets a day.  This news comes from a Forbes article by Andy Greenberg (http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/top-twitters-celebrities-technology-webceleb09_0129_top_twitters.html).  Other Celebrities on the list include Lance Armstrong, Barrack Obama, Stephen Colbert, and Shaquille O’Neal.  All of these star are frequently posting the less-than-140-character microblogs on Twitter.  Others Influentials include Robert Scoble (scobleizer.com), Jason Clalacanis (Weblogs), Michael Arrington (TechCrunch), and Kevin Rose (diggs.com).

Why are they using this leading-edge form of online communication?  Well the celebrities are busy becoming more famous, letting more people know what they are doing when.  The influencers, on the other hand, are using it to support thier business — online business.  Stated in the Forbes article, according to traffic counting firm ComScore, Twitter attracts about 1.9 million unique visitors a month.

Many technology companies build success based on web-eye-balls.  The more people looking at their sites, the more they succeed.  Guy Kawasaki is quoted the artcle, “Around 99.9% of Twitter users see it as something fun to do in your spare time, as some kind of nicety,” Kawasaki adds.  “I see it as a weapon.”

That weapon drives traffic to his alltop.com website and increases his credibility as a technology guru.  Twitter communication is instantaneous and simultaneous — definitely pushing limits.