Stephen Fry Considers Quitting Twitter
British Celebrity and Social Media Fan Makes Headline News on BBC
Oct 31, 2009
Twitter still has the power to turn heads. When the award-wining UK actor Stephen Fry announced via a tweet that he was going to stop using the service it made headline news on the main BBC website within minutes.
Fry's musing about whether or not to continue using Twitter were ranked alongside news of Hilary Clinton's efforts to restart the Middle East peace process and 70,000 UK post office workers going on strike.
Twitter the Social Media Success of 2009
The rise of the micro-blogging site has been phenomenal. Begun in 2006 it operates on a very simple principle - users broadcast messages, or tweets, of up to 140 characters. They choose whether or not to 'follow' one another but every message can be read by any Twitter user.
Twitter first hit the headlines in late 2008 during the attacks on Mumbai, when eye-witnesses were reported to be sending 80 tweets every 5 seconds. Emergency services and the media tuned into the Twitter and CNN called it 'the day that social media appeared to come of age'.
In 15 January 2009 Janis Krums, a passenger on a ferry across the Hudson River, Manhattan, witnessed the ditching of a US Airways flight into the river. He took a photo of plane in the river moments after it had come down and posted it on the internet via Twitter - creating another media frenzy about the role of social media in modern communications.
Stephen Fry and Twitter
Golden Globe nominee Stephen Fry is a prolific tweeter and keen advocate of the micro-blogging tool. His tweets are followed by almost a million people, to whom he delivers tiny snippets of his daily life.
He is also very open about being a sufferer of bipolar disorder, alternatively known as manic depression. He referred to this in the tweet where revealed his indecision over whether to leave Twitter: "Well maybe I'll see how I feel in a few days. Very low and depressed at the moment and any drop of meanness makes it so much worse. Sorry."
Fry, a technology enthusiast, appears to have had an exchange with another Twitter user which has led to this situation. At one point he tweeted "I retire from Twitter henceforward" but a few minutes later he announced his intention to think about it.
The fact that Fry's words were quickly promoted to a headline slot on the BBC website says a huge amount about the continuing level of interest in Twitter. What is a very simple communication tool still appears to wield enormous influence.
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