The twitter profile @andrewburnett is however dead.

If you want to follow, my new profile is @the_emecks

For months now none of my tweets have shown up in twitter search, as such they didn’t show up in nambu or tweetdeck conversations either. After various attempts to get support from twitter (including offering to pay $100 for it – possible monetisation there ;) ) I’ve given up and decided to get a new profile.

Proof Of Life

Just to prove I’m actually still alive and to put your minds at rest here’s a pic.

Andrew Burnett, the man, still alive and well

Now you’re finished ogling my pic, remember to follow @the_emecks if you still want to get my tweets!

Updates

So, not everyone believed that the picture above was a valid proof of life – I hope this next picture puts your minds at rest again. It was the cheapest newspaper available, so my frugal Scots / Swiss credentials are intact.

The cheapest newspaper with today's date on it.

Also my apologies to Edward for thinking the headline was true, but also thanks to him for his most excellent eulogy for me :D

Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against the lady, but there is something inherently wrong about anyone having over 80,000 followers before they have made a single tweet.
Her followers have just become 150,000 as I write this and she has made a grand total of 6 tweets with only one @reply – if that profile belonged to anyone else they’d rightly be called a spammer.

Of course, this has been a major coupe for her and twitter. She had the internet’s equivalent of a blockbuster by keeping the world waiting for her first tweet. A more successful twitter profile launch the world has yet to see, or do they?

Oprah’s 1st Tweet

So what did all these virtually queing celebrity stalkers get rewarded with as her first tweet?

HI TWITTERS . THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY .

All in caps.

Why So Down On Oprah?

It’s nothing personal and it’s not just Oprah. The proliferation of celebrities and celebrity culture on Twitter does have a negative side to it though. Social Media is just that – social, but there is nothing social about having hundreds of thousands of followers and not interacting with them is anything but social. Broadcast media exists precisely for this purpose. That said some celebrities truly seem to “get” social media, Stephen Fry being the obvious example. He follows many of his followers back and indeed often replies to tweets sent to him. Not a trait that can be viewed on many other celebrity twitterers profiles.