As promised, Piers Morgan went “Twitter crazy” on Tuesday night. Twitter co-founders @jack and @biz were fixtures on the show, and Morgan spoke with Twitter heavyweights Martha Stewart, Cory Booker, Alyssa Milano, Nick Kristof (NYT) and Katherine Rosman (WSJ).
“I get all my news via Twitter,” said CNN’s Morgan, who admitted that just months ago he thought Twitter was a big waste of time. Morgan asked a few questions posed from viewers via Twitter (although it felt like there should’ve been more), while a “magic Twitter wall” scrolled real-time tweets in the background. One of the best moments was when CNN aired this tweet coming back from commercials:
A brilliant promotional move by the snake, which now boasts 112,129 followers.
It was @jack’s first TV interview since returning to Twitter, although the questions steered away from his return. “It is extremely humbling to see quickly how the velocity of the service, how it has taken off,” @jack said. “It gets faster and faster every day.”
Morgan praised Nic Kristof’s (@nickristof) Twitter reporting throughout the recent conflicts in the Middle East. “I don’t wait for my next column, I just tweet,” Kristof said. “It enormously raises the cost of oppression for regimes. It holds dictators accountable.”
Of all the guest appearances, my favorite moment is when Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) challenged Martha Stewart’s notion that Twitter is primarily a way to publish to fans. “This is the listening platform of our generation,” he said, urging people to do more listening than publishing.
By the end of the show, despite a steady flow of tweets using the #onlyontwitter hashtag, it didn’t appear to become a trending topic. But the real question will be answered in the morning — how did the show do in the ratings? Stay tuned…
Update: The ratings are in, and looks like no significant Twitter bump
