Is Twitter the great leveller?

Yesterday there was quite a buzz around the Twitterspace all thanks to the godfather of dorkism Stephen Fry.

The esteemed Mister Fry has joined Twitter and started to tweet. He’s also started to follow people. People like me. As a big fan of his, I got a strange kind of digital stage-fright when this happened.

My Twitter followers did nothing to appease my fright. There were no messages of how witty and charming he’d find me. Instead I got this:

But I’m not the only one, Stephen Fry (at the time of writing) is following quite a lot of twitterers.

I think it’s great. It makes me love Twitter ever more – as I find myself spending more time there than on other social web 2.0 spaces. My brilliant friend Asi once said that “the Twitter effect is changing social cognition”. The Stephen Fry stuff yesterday makes me think that Twitter is also fast becoming the great leveller. Yet another stride in a move towards what I like to think of as “The New Community”. I’ll be writing a post about that soon. But basically, I reckon there was a time when community was about geography, now it’s our interests and passions that brings us together and binds us as a group. Just like Twitter lessened the degree of separation between Mr Fry and I on the basis that we’re both geeks.

If you’d like to follow me on Twitter (I’d like that very much) you can find me here. These are the kinds of insights and wisdoms both you and Stephen Fry can look forward to