Celebrities on Twitter

The growing popularity of the micro-blogging service Twitter, having grown by 13x over the past year to 7M+ uniques in Feb 09, and its increasing use for promotion/marketing, has made it popular among celebrities as well. Michael Phelps, Martha Stewart, Jane Fonda, Jimmy Fallon, P. Diddy, Deepak Chopra, Ashton Kutcher, Al Gore, are among a wide range of celebrities who are active Twitter users. Fans definitely welcome it, as they prefer direct and unfiltered updates from their stars, who also get an opportunity to connect with their fans in a manner that was not possible before such technology tools came along. Some celebrities, of course, appoint a staff member to manage their Twitter account.

Below is a representative celebrity Twitter ecosystem from The New York Times. The chart shows celebrities following one another on Twitter (as of March 18). Click of the chart to enlarge it.