Apparently Twitter has been the social media outlet of choice lately, for both stars and hostages.
According to Dustin Curtis, a designer who was quoted recently in the New York Times, there are three things that reliably drive traffic at Twitter: “(a) bashing airlines, (b) bashing Comic Sans, and (c) Justin Bieber,” .
Comedy aside, consider that Justin Bieber makes up 3% of Twitter traffic which translates to roughly 5 million followers on Twitter. This has been equated to “racks of servers, with Justin Bieber’s name on them.”
Twitter also seems to have found its following and is currently in no danger of going away either.
When you factor that there are over 200,000,000 blogs, and 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily, 34% of bloggers post opinions about products about products or brands, its not surprising that social Media is now the number one activity on the web.
The Twitter social media outlet seems to be the outlet that stars use most to communicate with fans.
When professional wrestler Hulk Hogan was hospitalized recently, he updated his fans via Twitter. He made a video from his hospital bed and told his fans that he was “feeling better already.”
When Paris Hilton went to Hawaii to get away following her recent arrest, she complained on Twitter about the presence of paparazzi on the island.
She writes “The paparazzi have been out of control in Maui, We had to call the cops because they have been trespassing on our property all week trying to get shots. As well as chasing our car wherever we go and almost running other cars off the road. Its not only invasive and annoying, but dangerous as well.”
“I flew to Hawaii to relax and get some privacy and they won’t stop,” she continued. “I am so sick of them and all these ridiculous rumors people are inventing, it’s disgusting and very hurtful.”
Perhaps in a more beneficial use of the social media outlet Twitter, a Japanese journalist who was released this week after being held captive in Afghanistan for five months explained on Tuesday how he had managed to post two updates on Twitter from the phone of one of his captors.
Three days before his release, one of his captors, identified as a low-ranking soldier, was showing him a new cell phone. The soldier didn’t know how to use it and asked if Tsuneoka would take a look and explain it to him. The soldier was unfamiliar with the Internet, but was eager to see it.
Initially the phone wasn’t signed up to receive the carrier’s GPRS data service for accessing the Internet, so Tsuneoka called the customer care number and activated the phone. Soon after the soldier’s phone was configured for Internet access and more specifically, Twitter.
Tsuneoka sent the two following tweets: “i am still allive, but in jail” and “here is archi in kunduz. in the jail of commander lativ.”
The strangest part is that Tsuneoka has been abducted before; He was abducted in Georgia in 2001 and held for several months and then freed during a Georgian military operation.
No Tweeting during that period.
Twitter seems to have dug in and despite early signs that it had no second act, it seems they have figured out their place in this world.
Have a question and need quick answers? 
