All a-Twitter: The Tweet smell of success

From the White House to our house, from Hollywood to the halls of Congress, suddenly everyone is "tweeting" on Twitter - and wants you to know it.

The free social-networking Web site is the new bling of the communication age. Celebs, pols, and millions more - even those who shun the Web - are scrambling to master it. This is Twitter's moment as symbol of status, popularity, and power. And no one wants to be left out.

Never mind that Twitter's been around since 2006. In recent months, it has rocketed to prominence as a way to stay informed, build a following, and, very important, show you are current and cool.

Even the reddest-hot of all hot Web sites, Facebook, is trying to join the trend, debuting changes this week that make it more Twitterish.

Twitter's logo features a little bird that's "always interested in what everyone is doing." You post "tweets" - updates on where you are, what's up, what you're thinking - but you're limited to 140 characters. Quick hits, bang-bang-bang. You can choose people to "follow" (monitor their tweets), and people can choose to follow you. The effect is of a one-on-one conversation with hundreds of people, on the run.

Celebrities including bicyclist Lance Armstrong, actor Ashton Kutcher, b-ball god Shaquille O'Neal, singer/songwriter/sometime-Jennifer Aniston-arm ornament John Mayer, and comedian Jimmy Fallon all are dedicated Twitter tweeters.

Armstrong announced the theft of a bike on Twitter, and said bike was found. Kutcher and mate Demi Moore live-twittered from post-Oscar parties. O'Neal organized a flash mob (spontaneous gathering) of fans, and even had dinner with one fan, via Twitter. Fallon replaced Conan O'Brien as host of NBC's Late Night on Tuesday. During the taping, he tweeted: "Show taping!" Afterward, he chortled: "1st show done. I was a bit nervous. But overall really happy. Whew!"

The rush to tweet creates a me-too anxiety, evidenced by Martha Stewart's tweet Tuesday morning: "Proving that I really am on Twitter!"

Fact is, people will Twitter - and want to be seen Twittering - in the middle of almost any function. Several members of Congress conspicuously "live-twittered" during President Obama's address to Congress last week.

At least one House member, Joe Barton (R., Texas), has become famous for it, showing his constituents during Obama's speech that he was (a) hip, and (b) not exactly applauding Obama or the enemy Democrats. At one point, Barton tweeted that a Texas "basketball game is about to start on espn2 for those of you that aren't going to bother watching [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] smirk for the next hour." Repentance of that snark came minutes later: "Disregard that last Tweet from a staffer."

Twitter also is flying all over the news, especially among newscasters. When bystanders posted to Twitter the first images of the masterly water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River, it amplified a way to harness Twitter for news purposes. Almost all major news outlets, including The Inquirer (www.twitter.com/phillyinquirer), Twitter these days.

Anchors and cohosts such as NBC's David Gregory and CNN's Rick Sanchez have made Twitter part of their shows and shticks. Sanchez calls one feature the Twitter Board, copied on other shows as Twitter Talk and Twitter Time, in which viewers send tweets about the show on which their tweets are being shown.

Gregory, host of Meet the Press, has become so famous (or notorious? or boring?) for his constant tweets that on Monday he made Garry Trudeau's comic strip, Doonesbury: Alex (Doonesbury's daughter) stares rapt at her i-Thing (where many Twitterers receive their feeds) and says, "Ohmigod! David Gregory just ate a ham sandwich!" Next panel: Newsguy Roland Hedley, in combat fatigues someplace warlike, tweets: "About to scratch myself. Stand by." Can any stardom reach higher than that?

(Gregory already has tweeted in reply: "So if you saw doonsberry . . . I don't eat ham sandwiches!")

On Tuesday's Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Stewart and correspondent Samantha Bee discussed how Twitter "offers real-time access to some of our most important leaders' and newspaper people's least important thoughts."

Some are seeing Twitter as a means to power. While they cannot hope to rival the followings of Britney Spears (259,759 followers as of this writing) or Kutcher (201,631), politicians such as Sen. John McCain can do pretty well (137,995, best in Congress). Obama, who began Twittering before he hit the White House, has 364,984 followers.

And many see in Twitter a way to politick. McCain is waging an underground Twitter war against the huge spending bills in Congress. Yesterday, he (or perhaps a Twitter surrogate) live-twittered from the Senate floor about "$7,100,000 for the conservation and recovery of endangered Hawaiian sea turtle populations," and later tweeted: "See the sea turtles on your $238,000 Polynesian Voyage."

It works the other way, too: Some want all of Congress on Twitter, as seen in the Web site TweetCongress.org, which tracks those who are and aren't. For the record, Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey don't tweet, but Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey (630) does; an Arlen Specter site ("official news, unofficial Twitter") shows the Pennsylvania senator has but 309 followers. As for local govs, a Jon Corzine string has yet to crack double figures, and Ed Rendell is nowhere to be tweeted.

Most of Twitter, however, is the little guy and gal. Even here, there is an anxiety to be seen plying the latest technology. It's also here that Twitter may find its most creative uses.

Evan Gentry, a student living in New Brunswick, N.J., says he doesn't use the Web site much, but rather funnels the tweets of a select group of friends to his cell phone. "It helps make conversations deeper," he says. "Since you've already covered the preliminary details on Tweeter updates, once you see the person, you can bypass those and go to more profound issues."

Tim Nussbaumer, pastor of the Point Church, also in New Brunswick, brims with creative uses for Twitter, toward which he was initially a "skeptic." He says you can learn, for example, not just what leaders are doing but how they think: "There are leaders in virtually every field that are using Twitter on a regular basis."

When he has an issue or question, Nussbaumer Twitters them for ideas: "Within about five minutes, I had a half dozen responses that were very helpful. . . . It's like having continuous access."

The thing about Twitter chic is that this technology seems to have so much promise . . . but what if it has reached its peak before its purpose?

OK, so tweet this: Now that we're all here, what do we do next - in 140 characters or less?

or jt@phillynews.com or twitter.com/jtimpane.

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