Twitter has had a chat-with-celebrities vibe from the getgo. Originally, this meant tech celebrities. Many people probably signed up for Twitter largely because Robert Scoble promised to follow everybody's tweets. Within a few weeks of starting Twitter use myself, I was on the phone with Dave Winer, talking about -- how meta is this? -- rearchitecting Twitter. In a number of cases, it has seemed that I am the tech celebrity somebody has followed onto Twitter and/or gushed over chatting with.
But now celebrities of all stripes are joining in, from extroverted hoopster Shaquille O'Neal -- who broadcast his location on Twitter and talked fans into visiting his diner table -- to porn actress Madison Young -- who looked for company (or a place to sleep) in Detroit -- to Wil Wheaton and Brent Spiner. Of course, this doesn't really scale -- Scoble doesn't reply to very many of the people who Tweet at him directly, and the same is true of Wheaton, Lance Armstrong, and Shaq. Even so, Twitter can be an effective way for people at all levels of celebrity to get attention, build their "personal brands," and maybe even get plugged-in.