When I was younger, I thought Britney Spears was the most incredible thing in the world. Over time I’ve come to realize that she’s not, and that I can like her music without necessarily being a fan of her. Besides, she doesn’t need me – she’s got millions of fans around the world. And that’s exactly what makes the news of her official Twitter account so interesting:
I’ll say this, though. This is solid gold for Twitter. A few more of these and it will be hard to argue that it isn’t going mainstream.
There’s more discussion at Techmeme. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Britney here.
The Twitter account is part of her newly relaunched website. It also includes links to her profiles on YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook. Obviously it’s not Britney herself spending the time to engage with fans on all of these sites, her people are doing that for her. To their credit, they’re up-front about that. Here’s the bio on Twitter:
Yes! This is the real Britney Spears! We’ve got updates from her team, her website and yes, even Britney herself!
Michael Arrington is right – if Twitter continues to sign up high profile celebrities, it’ll be hard to argue that Twitter is not going mainstream. I can’t confirm if this is legit or not, but I’m pretty sure that Kanye West is officially on Twitter too.
I wonder who will join Twitter next?
UPDATE: A few others I know about – David Usher and Matthew Good
UPDATE (11/24/2008): It seems Britney’s team has worked some magic, she is now simply @britneyspears. If you were following her old account, you’ve automatically be migrated.
MasterMaq's Blog 
I think it’s a really huge difference between being ‘On Twitter’ and having your publicist be ‘On Twitter, on your Behalf’.
John Cleese is ON Twitter.
Britney Spears has marketing people ON Twitter.
It’s not mainstream, when it’s being uses purely as a marketing tool.
As I pointed out, it’s not just Britney updating the account.
And actually, I disagree with you. When it’s just text anyway, can you tell the difference between updates that Britney writes herself or updates that someone else writes? As far as the vast majority of people are concerned, that account = Britney Spears. And that’s enough to get more people to sign up for Twitter.
Does this really matter if Twitter doesn’t have a revenue model?
Apparently they will be doing something on the business model front next year. See the discussion here: http://www.techmeme.com/081018/p26#a081018p26
“Apparently they will be doing something on the business model front next year”
lol. I read that as “Apparently they will be thinking about developing a business model next year… whether they’ll find one or not is un-known”
Well judging by what Fred Wilson wrote on his blog, I think that’s the correct way to read it actually.
It sounds a little out-to-lunch, but I think the strategy is a good one. Google didn’t figure out its business model right away, and you could argue that Facebook hasn’t yet either. Yet they have turned out okay.
The biggest ‘problem’ with Twitter is it’s SO simple. Google, Facebook, etc are relatively complicated and deep things. Twitter is simple. There’s so few opportunities within your interaction with Twitter to, say, put ads. A lot of people don’t even interact directly with Twitter, but through a 3rd party, making it even harder to give them ads.
The 1-in-20 messages is an ad thing is a stupid idea imho, especially if they’re being SMSd to people. But at the same time, it’s the most obvious. Then you start wondering what else they could do, and there isn’t much.
How would *you* monetize twitter? Not just ‘put ads’ or ‘enterprises version’, but details. It’s the details that make most plans for Twitter fail.
(get a kick back from cell providers is the only somewhat plausible idea, but suffers from the old ‘why would they providers bother giving you money’ problem)
Honest answer: I don’t really know. I think I’d try a few things to see what sticks.
Couple ideas:
Twitter as a platform has potential. Why not charge enterprises for the ability to build things on top of it? Not just simple API access, but for extra things, such as access to the XMPP feed and a support plan of some kind. I don’t think it makes sense for Twitter to build a separate enterprise version of Twitter, but there is a chance that they could help enterprises leverage the public Twitter.
I don’t think putting ads on Twitter makes sense, but I see no reason why they can’t put ads on Twitter Search. I think that’s a more appropriate place for advertising, so long as it’s clear what’s an ad and what’s not (just like on Google).
Dub5, a company in Edmonton appends simple text ads to the end of their SMS messages. I am willing to bet that most tweets don’t max out the SMS limit of 160 chars (I think).
Another thing they could do is sell their data to market research firms. I’m sure Twitter could paint a pretty picture for whatever hot topic you’re looking for feedback on.
Britney Spears is simply the best pop singer. i like her superb stage performance and her sexiness