Ashton Kutcher Is Famous and I'm Not

But of course the question is, if I join Twitter, can I become famous? Or, er, get some new clients or something?

Though the Cranky Editor ensconced herself in her living room for half an hour on a gorgeous Friday afternoon last week, she did not discover the answer on Oprah. She did find out that Ashton beat CNN to be the first to hit the million mark in Tweeterland (i.e., a million Tweeters? Twitterers? Twits? -- depends on your perspective, I guess -- now follow his "stream" ... of consciousness, which he and Oprah and Gail cited as an example of democratization [ugh, that word!]).

She also found out what the interface looked like (like this, if you're a handsome rich Hollywood type), and that Twitter messages (aka Tweets) are limited to 140 characters or less, and that even the mighty O herself hasn't a clue what this new technology is really good for.

That made CE feel better, though she's wondering about the future of actual books, with their unhip many thousands of characters, and attention spans and the ability to express sophisticated, subtle ideas. She thinks if Dickens were here, he'd be all over it, Derrida too, of course; Sartre not so much. What would Walt Whitman do? I mean, on Twitter he could really contain multitudes. Could Proust get with the program? Facetious tone, serious question: note the rise of flash fiction, text message novels, etc. Not stressing here, merely positing.

Here's another take on the zeitgeist (hmm, using that word too much, but it's so darn handy), from a business book/blog perspective (thanks to Ben's FB post for the link).

Since I'm still not famous, I'm heading outside to pull weeds and listen to the original, feathered Tweeters.