First an official Google account appeared on Twitter:
But now Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been uncovered, having had an account for almost a month.
Definitely some validation for Twitter – which also hit 8 million U.S users.
It’s fun to hypothesis that Google, perhaps, is on Twitter as a customer service exercise – after all, they owned Jaiku, and the differences between the two services are fairly open and obvious, so it isn’t a research mission.
But Zuckerberg is even more interesting – Facebook already had an offer turned down for Twitter, so it’s unlikely he’s trying before he buys. And Facebook has also unveiled changes that seem to be partly in response to the real-time nature of Twitter.
Perhaps he sees it as an additional communication channel that is worth spending some time with, or perhaps he just fancied some fun by trying to see how long he could be anonymous?
Personally I’m just excited (and surprised) by the fact that for some strange reason, he’s decided to follow me!