There was a little-big news today. President Obama made a big confession; he has never used Twitter. Even that he has around 2,7 million followers and he is tweeting regularly. That absolutely awful, isn’t it?

After that there has been so much talk in the cyberspace about the whole Twitter as media. How can we trust President Obama’s Twitter tweeds if he is not writing those? And when President Obama is writing a column on a newspaper, who is writing that? Give me a break.

Okay, hands up everyone who really thought Barack is tweeting with you? I mean real-him-personally? I have been using him as a great example of people branding in the social media. When I started to follow him, I got that – as well around other 1+ million people – Twitter confirmation email saying, “Barack Obama is now following you”. Isn’t that great or what? Then-becoming-US President Barack Obama is following me. Me! I need to be important guy since HE is following me! That’s like an ego booster. When a brand starts to follow you, the traditional branding theory is turned upside down and that’s why social media is so hot potato in the marketing world. We have good cases and plenty of best practices but we really have no real understanding how that works.

I don’t know if another twitter-mate of mine, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is typing his tweeds by himself or not, but I don’t care really. The point why I follow both is that I am truly interested to hear what’s up with them. I don’t really care if a politician, sport star, entertainment celebrity or whoever public person is typing their tweeds personally or by their professional PR-team as long as the tweeds are useful, funny, informative, entertaining or whatever the focus is. Personally I would be very worried if US President is tweeting all day long as he might have something more important to do, right?

I see Twitter as a great instant messaging platform. I especially enjoy great journalists and media companies putting together news and tweeting those to me. For example, I keep following the tweets of Guftago as she/he/they are putting together various articles and stories around Pakistan and there I have a good source for such a news. I do the same with ABC7, BrandRepublic or NY Times. I save time and can quickly browse through the stuff I am interested. You know, kind of news feeding system but in so much more interesting and wider form; and simultaneously keeping track on friends or other interesting people. Traditional media giants and small information sources side by side; that’s something making Twitter really interesting, I believe.

If a brand like President Obama or Nike is tweeting I know it is not a person-2-person tweet. But it can still be interesting. And when I got a tweet from not-so-much-celebrity person my expectation is more personal. I know – or I assume, at least – that great British actor Stephen Fry is tweeting by himself. I enjoy his tweets but I don’t believe those very personal, as there are 1+ million other people seeing those. But I do like those very much. BTW, congratulations to him entering into the level of 7-digit-followers! Well done. I do follow people like Umair Haque, Alf Rehn, Ivan Basso, Lance Amstrong or George Stephanopoulos for that same reason; their tweets might be interesting, or having interesting link to somewhere. Interesting – that’s the whole point. Various people, various companies, various subjects. Twitter allows me to make a good mix of Facts & Fun Stream. Unfortunately only a limited amount of people since the interface is so bad if you would follow more that 50-100 people. That’s why I feel obliged to keep the list limited. Evan, I would have few good ideas for you..

Let’s enjoy twitter and wonderful tweets. And let’s not think too much who is actually typing the tweets. I am sure we all recognize the realities of the modern world as well as the difference between a private life and celebrity life, right?

Cheers for Barack! Cheers for Arnold! Cheers for Stephen! Cheers for great PR people!