Friday, April 3, 2009

Ghost Twitterers

I was always skeptical about the use of Twitter by celebrities. Countless blogs and news articles opined about the use of twitter as a tool to bring people more closer than any other social networking site., how you can follow famous people without intruding space and get insights into their ideas and philosophy

But wait a minute, are you really following the celebrity you thought you were following. Chances are that you might not. Apparently, celebrities are employing people for tweeting on their behalf, a third-person to keep their Twitter page live(just like they did with the other social networkig sites) in a new marketing job position that sprung up, what is being termed as a "Ghost Twitterer". Check the article in NYTimes here that dwelves into the issue.

Now this is fine for getting updates about a celebrity's schedules and latest news. But definitely NOT for getting an insight into their thoughts and ideas because they aren't the real person's but a third-person's who tweets just what she interprets and not what she thinks.
I don't see a point in following such ghost twitterers who just tweets continuosly. All she would want is post interesting articles that get re-tweeted and thus increase the followers' numbers and consequently, the popularity.
Twitter has been very careful about spammers and fakes and has been deleting their profiles quite often but can they do anything about this. Definitely not I guess.

So, it's upto you to follow the "celebrity" whose tweets arent always his/her own thoughts