140Char

It seems like every day reveals another celebrity using Twitter. Today I stumbled across two!

Lance Armstrong doesn’t really need an introduction as a 7-time winner of the Tour de France, and also an inspirational figure who overcame cancer. There’s also Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong Foundation, uniting people to fight cancer. He’s tweeting at @lancearmstrong.

Meanwhile Will Carling is the former captain of the England Rugby Union team, with 72 caps from 1988-1996, as well as playing for Harlequins. He captained England to two Five Nations triumphs in 1991 and 1992, the final of the 1991 World Cup, and a 1995 Grand Slam. He’s at @willcarling.

Add that to a list of sporting stars including:

• Andy Murray
• Shaquille O Neal
• and?

If you’ve spotted any other sporting stars, past or present, let me know in the comments. And don’t let it stop you if they’re on Plurk, Jaiku or Identi.ca instead!

I’ve realised that although I’ve been blogging just as often at my social media blog, TheWayoftheWeb.net, my frequency here has slipped a bit.

I’m starting to wonder whether that’s due to the fact I’m spending more time on my day job and other matters, or whether the financial situation etc has meant less focus on the microblogging boom? There is certainly a change of focus by the majority of blogs I’m reading, and what coverage remains in general blogging is generally all about Twitter and monetisation. Perhaps it’s also the fact Twitter has led the way to the mainstream with the arrival of celebrities from the wider world, rather than just social media agencies and bloggers!

I don’t think a period of slight consolidation is a bad thing - for one thing it might allow us more time to consider which applications really are more useful, and which are just adding to the noise. It might also give me a bit more time to actually play around with alternatives to Twitter. I gave up on Yammer after just a few days, and suddenly found in my absence a new group of colleagues had joined! I rarely get a chance to Plurk, Pownce or Jaiku (can any noun be a verb?). And then there’s getting a decent camera to use with Seesmic, Mobatalk, 12 Seconds etc.

Then there’s updating the tools list - for instance, there’s a new, improved version of Posty to play with (v1.6). And getting some more interesting people to interview about their microblogging or their application.

And there’s the long-needed recommendations for the other blogs which focus on their area. I have a few in my RSS list and more appearing all the time, so it’s about time I shared some link love.

I might even get time to find where all my other volunteer authors on here have vanished to!

So a bit of a quiet spell definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing - but I just know there’s a revoluntionary new app or tool around the corner!