The Oprah Effect

As everyone knows, Oprah Winfrey has joined Twitter.  During her show on Friday, she tweeted her first tweet.  At that point, the blog posts started flying (here, here, here, here, here, here and here).  Some saying it would be the demise of Twitter.  Others lamenting that now Twitter would be ruined by the masses.  I spent the weekend thinking about what effect Oprah (and other celebrities) will have on Twitter.

I have decided it is a good thing.  Why?  Because the tech world celebrities needed a good dose of humility.  In many ways, cewebrities have gotten out of control.  Although I won’t mention any names, I have had the opportunity to meet, in person, many of the top names in the tech world.  The same people, who only a little while ago seemed to own Twitter and any other service they touched.  You know…back when having 40K followers was a big deal.  Although many of these cewebrities seem very personable on their online tv shows, podcasts or in their blogs, quite often that is not the case in person.  In person, many of them are very elitist.  I was actually asked on a few occassions, during tweet-ups in various cities “Are you someone important?”  I answered “No.”  At that point, they would walk away without another word.  The first time it happened, I thought it was a joke.  No one is laughing.

I think that they fail to understand that they are, by nature, geeks.  Their audience is therefore, geeks.  Although they are huge in the industry, it is a small pond.  The only people that care who they are, are people who care about tech news or need PR for their start-up.  My wife, who has been in the tech industry for over a decade has no clue who any of them are and has no interest in finding out.  I have many friends in the tech industry who feel the same way.  Many of them are surely upset now because, as I mentioned before, there were big fish in a small pond and now a whale has come along to wash them on shore.

It is my hope that they all take this opportunity to take a step back and really look at where they are and have they got there.  Maybe they will once again have respect for their fans.  Maybe they will never ask someone again “Are you someone important?”.