Celebrity can be an interesting thing when distilled to no more than 140 characters. As the micro-blogging platform Twitter.com has gone mainstream, an increasing number of celebrities have opened up accounts where they post messages _ or “tweet” _ about their daily lives. A tweet can't exceed 140 characters, but that limitation hasn't prevented the famous from revealing a new digital dimension of themselves. There are star athletes (Shaquille O'Neal, Lance Armstrong), politicians (Sen. John McCain, President Obama before taking office) and stars ranging from the A-list to the D-list. Some, like Britney Spears, usually post messages written by their supporting staff, simply announcing various events. Others, like Jimmy Fallon, are clearly promoting a new venture _ in Fallon's case, his new late-night show on NBC. John Hodgman, a “Daily Show” correspondent and popular microblogger, said in an interview via Twitter: “What I really love is a) the harsh discipline of 140 char. b) the playfulness. It's a parlor game w/1 rule, inf. variations.” One of the most popular microbloggers is MC Hammer, the `90s rap star who has remade himself in the last decade as an Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of the video site DanceJam.com. He has more than 157,000 “followers” _ users who receive his Twitter feed. Many stars already have their own blogs, but postings on blogs frequently are announcements or messages (think Lindsay Lohan expressing her support of Obama). With Twitter, there needs to be no purpose, no meaningfulness. William Shatner, for one, recently joined, and although he hasn't begun conversing with fans, he is for the most part simply hyping his projects. In an e-mail, he said: “I am a twit with Twitter, but hope to get up to speed within the next decade.”
