Sunday, April 26, 2009

Demi Moore uses Twitter to help prevent fan's suicide

As mentioned before in class, I really think it is Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher that blog all the time, judging from an article in this post. Since I follow them on Twitter, I observe what they write and it sounds very personal and I think only they could write that (as opposed to hiring their PR person to do the work). Furthermore, I began to think about the impact that having 30,000+ "followers" on Twitter could have, especially now that most people have the postings sent to their phone. I think Twitter's ability to do that surpasses the impact on getting people's attention as compared to Myspace. Alhought Myspace is accessible through the phone, I have not seen an option where people could receive updates of others sent directly as a notification to their phone. Hence, not getting immediate attention. So, even though you may have 30,000+ friends on Myspace most people do not know what you're promoting unless they CHOOSE to click on your site and check it out.The site does have a great ability to draw someone in with the music and decor, which Twitter does not provide as extensively. Also, Twitter is very popular with the tiny URL's which usually leads you to a site that the person wants to draw your attention to. Myspace is not popular with using the tiny URL's-- it is actually most focused on 'updating your mood'.
To wrap this up, I basically wanted to state how today's busy society doesn't allow for us to spend a lot of time 'viewing' people's site and reading an often extensive autobiography about them to get to know what they're about. We want to glance, read, and move on. Twitter was wisely constructed.
Here, I found an interesting article that was brought to my attention by a tiny URL from one of my Twitter friends. It is basically about the impace that Twitter interactions actually could have on people.
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Demi Moore uses Twitter to help prevent fan's suicide
Apr 3, 2009, 06:08 PM | by Alynda Wheat

Categories: Current Affairs, Movies, Web/Tech

A "tweet" may have saved a Demi Moore fan's life, CNN reported today. The actress, whose Twitter blog has some 380,000 fans, received an online threat from a woman who said she was "getting a knife, a big one that is sharp. Going to cut my arm down the whole arm so it doesn't waste time." Moore responded to the grim statement with the comment "Hope you are joking." The unnamed 48-year-old woman's suicide threat was traced to a San Jose, Calif., home, where she was taken into custody for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation. Moore, who was in southern France where husband Ashton Kutcher is shooting the crime drama Five Killers, later informed her Twitter followers that the San Jose police were in control of the situation, and that she was "very torn about responding or retweeting that woman's post but felt uncomfortable just letting it go."
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After I read this article I thought to myself, if this lady has posted the same thing with the same amount of friends on Myspace would Demi Moore pick up on it? Would it be brought to attention by someone else? I guess we'll never know but all I know is I'm glad she seen it.

1 comment:

  1. A good point. There is an intimacy and immediacy about Twitter that you don't find on the other social networking sites.

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