Bonnie Fuller invented the modern incarnation of the celebrity gossip magazine at Us Weekly aesthetic — the screaming palette of pinks, purples and yellow, the starburst cover lines, the hand-drawn arrows, and picture pop-outs — which were widely duplicated as a sure-fire formula to get ladies to buy magazines at newsstands. This home page for her newly redesigned site uses all of her old magazine tricks. Simultaneously.

This stew of soft celeb chatter on HollywoodLife.com is all the more overwhelming because of the truly massive pictures Fuller insists on placing on the home page, thus requiring absurd amounts of scrolling to see just one item. That's not the only magazine throwback on the site; the right margin of the homepage is studded with little Us-esque sidebars, which should be as painful for Fuller's poor underlings to maintain/update as they will for readers to skim.

Which isn't to say Fuller's early stumbles will be lethal for her or her boss Jay Penske, who is building a stable of Hollywood news sites of widely varying viciousness. Pictures and chaotic sidebars aside, HollywoodLife has a serviceably clean design, and Web publishing in any case is all about iteration. Fuller just needs to coax a series of user-friendly tweaks from her staff. Given Fuller's notoriously ferocious approach to management, that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Under the old rules of Twitter tradition, you "re-tweeted" another user by placing the letters "RT" before the quote and after any commentary you yourself added, like so:

If you use the new built-in re-tweet system, the original tweet would be copied into your stream under the byline of the original tweeter, like so:

The obvious problem: You lose the ability to actually say anything about what you're quoting if you use the new system. Also, all your followers are going to get a strange and potentially confusing avatar of someone they're not subscribed to in their stream.

On the bright side, this system is great for Twitter Inc. "Retweets potentially reveal very interesting data," Twitter CEO Evan Williams writes in a blog post about the new re-tweeting feature. Indeed, the feature offers a metric with which to rank tweets and thereby the results of Twitter searches and Twitter users themselves. Twitter could sell this data, provided free by its users, to the richest and most favored bidders, just like the microblogging startup did with the actual content of tweets.

The feature also helps Twitter's celebrity power users. Writes Williams:

RTs can actually be easily faked, which has become a form of spam, wherein well-known people are shown to be promoting something they never twittered about.

But, hey, if you don't like this new re-tweet thing that is so awesome for celebrities and Twitter Inc., you can always opt out. As Williams writes (emphasis from original), "you can turn off Retweets for everyone you follow (individually)." So just click "OFF" 200 times? Sounds super-easy!

(Top pic: Twitter co-founders Williams and Biz Stone, by Mathieu Thouvenin.)

Arianna Huffington has allowed her editors to run ultra-close ups of the aging body of Vogue's Anna Wintour ("what does she really look like?") and now actresses Lindsay Lohan ("unedited" and splotchy) and Elizabeth Hurley (a bit sweaty). It's a case of her unprofitable company's need for monetizable, non-political Web traffic (read: cheap celebrity clicks) running headlong into Huffington's need to suck up to celebs, who write for her site and come to her parties and help her seem very glamorous.

We won't lecture Huffington on her company's too-often-shoddy attempts to make money in the online publishing racket. At least, not in this post. But we will keep her honest: If Huffington is going to run unedited pictures of others, it's only fair there should be some unedited pictures of her out there.

Click any of the images below to pop-up large, hi-res versions. (Warning, this may slow down your web browser and ruin your lunch.) We've played by HuffPo rules: Posed, red carpet pictures with no editing. We've also excerpted a highlight, as Huffington did with Wintour.

UPDATE: Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky notes that the first chapter of Huffington's book On Becoming Fearless is about positive body image. Plastering someone's picture on HuffPo is certainly one way to nudge that person toward becoming "fearless."

Here's how The Twitter World Works, according to Kaus: Twitter needs celebrities on its service to attract millions of new users every month or quarter or whatever. Celebrities, in turn need adoring fans, but (key point) have very fragile egos. So Kaus suspects Twitter of keeping a secret team of interns in a back room somewhere, poring over the massive stream of tweets directed at celebrities, and deleting the mean nasty tweets from search.twitter.com. The offending tweets still appear on Twitter, but won't show up in search results.

Kaus knows this because he tweeted something mean about CNN president Jon Klein, and it never showed up in Twitter search. Plus, in Kaus' experience, searches on celebrity names "almost invariably turn up... pleasant comments." Pretty ironclad. Ahem.

But you know what? The conspiracy might just be real. (Cue sinister music.) Here's a chummy little conversation between Twitter CEO/co-founder Ev Williams (pictured above, left, with celebrity tweeter Michael Stipe) and known celebrity Alyssa Milano talking about Kaus' conspiracy theory. She called it "interesting," followed by Ev's slick — too slick! — non-denial denial of Kaus' allegations.

Williams could have knocked down Kaus' conspiracy allegations by simply saying "that's absurd" or somesuch. But he didn't. Now we're actually kind of intrigued, at Kaus' seemingly crackpot ideas. Tell us it ain't so, Twitter people. Or better yet confirm, preferably with a picture of your secret cabal of celebrity gladhanders.

(Top pic: via Ev Williams)

This story teaches us all a valuable lesson: when minor celebrities try to use the tabloid press to their advantage-when they need something from the tabloids, as opposed to tabloids' lecherous reputation with real celebrities' lives-it's always the tabloid press who wins. Let's go over this one more time:

1. A minor celebrity in need of press spin calls a tabloid. Erica Wang calls the New York Post.

2. Why should they care and/or take her side of the story? Because their subject will give the rest of the scoop to them when the appropriate time comes. The Post runs an awesome, fun-filled report of Wang and friends partying after she was "stood up at the altar." Wang and friends also try to spin it to other outlets, like us. Erica Wang spinning her jilted bride story could be anything from revenge, to the desire for infamy, to a book deal or a TV show or, as our wedding expert Phyllis Nefler suggested, a Page Six Magazine interview. It could also be a press play to fight for image when this does become a legal battle of some kind (English billing her for the wedding-which he eventually did- her trying to get money from him, etc).

3. The story explodes, as English claims she abused him. The rest of the press wants it. The initial subject of the story delivers the entire exclusive to her original spin publication. Point for Nefler: Wang delivers on the exclusive Post interview. She gets her side of the story out on her home court-the Post-who keep delivering for their mutually beneficial relationship by spinning the story in her favor. Meanwhile, English starts talking to his hometown Boston Herald Boston Globe in order to win favor locally regarding his side of the story.

And here we are: 4. The home tabloids can claim victory when the story moves into overdrive on both sides. English admits: he didn't file a domestic violence complaint against Wang until she went to the press to try to paint English as a bad person.

English waited nearly a month to report the Sept. 14 incident — pressing charges a day after The Post published an exclusive interview with Wang in which she called him "an animal" for blowing off their wedding. English "felt he had to move forward to protect his credibility" after the article, his lawyer, Danielle de Benedictis, told The Boston Herald.

Yup. This wasn't a story worth reporting on until Wang made it one. And now she's got a domestic abuse charge against her and people coming out of the woodwork with character color on her.

Maybe English was worried about the press on him being bad for business (let's say he wants to be a family-friendly TV chef), or maybe he was just pissed (he's got three kids who he doesn't want reading this shit). Who knows. Either way: the Post took the ball and ran it all the way into the end zone. They made the story, broke each piece every step of the way, and were eventually the cause for it getting played out even further. They also continued to establish themselves as a place minor-celebrities can present juicy scoops to in exchange for favorable coverage, which may or may not work to said celebrities' advantages. In this case, it hasn't worked out well for Wang.

But two questions remain: Why the hell did Wang think it was a good idea to carry on with the wedding party? We now know she had more than enough time to cancel it. Probably revenge, or impulse, or sadness. But the second, and more interesting question: Why the hell did Wang try to spin this to the press so hard? What did she really want out of all of this?

Everything we've heard-comments, tips, hearsay from other publications-have indicated in some form or another that this is the kind of thing that Wang's reputation adds up to. Lesson learned, then.

The makings of a minor celebrity are typically a sad, sordid affair for almost everyone involved. Almost. In the case of the New York Post, this is when you get to clock out early on Friday with a pat on the back from the boss. NYP Editor-in-Chief Col Allen and Crew, as someone staffing a gossip page myself, I've got to say: commendable work.

[Update: I incorrectly attributed the Boston Globe's scoop the the Boston Herald. I didn't even know Boston had gossip reporters before this! Awesome. Now I know who to hit up when I want to know what's up Bill Belichick's ass this week. Whickeh Pissahs.]

That's right, Heidi could have read that she gave birth of her daughter, Lou Sulola Samuels (why doesn't she have more names?), while she was actually giving her daughter Lou Samuels.

Here's the timeline:

• Friday, October 9, 2:57pm: Radar Online is the first to report the news saying that she was born naturally at 1am on Friday.
• Friday, October 9, 4:18pm: Perez Hilton picks up the story with the Radar info, spreading it far and wide.
• Friday, October 9, 6:02pm: Us Weekly's website reports that Klum's rep confirmed the birth hasn't happened yet, but is imminent. Calls out Radar Online for getting the story wrong.
• Friday, October 9, 6:22pm: GossipCop, a website which policies the veracity of claims by gossip outlets, reports that the baby hasn't even been born yet.
• Friday, October 9, 7:46pm: Lou Samuels is born for real.
• Monday, October 12, 11:15pm: People.com runs the confirmation that the baby has been born. It runs a statement from babydaddy Seal with the real time of birth. It says the statement was released "Monday night."
• Monday, October 12, 11:31pm: Gossip Cop runs the official news along with Seal's statement.
• Monday, October 12, evening: Seal issues a statement that we've already read in People and on Gossip Cop.
• Tuesday, October 13, 7:37am: Radar Online runs an item about the birth saying, "When you're right — you're right. But we're not gloating. OK, we are!" They obliquely call out Us Weekly and say they never got the story wrong.

Yes, Radar, you did get the story right. Heidi gave birth to a girl and named her Lou Samuels. But since we all knew that she was pregnant with a girl for months, the fact that she gave birth to her was kind of an inevitability. While we're at it, Gawker has the big scoop: on October 9, 2010 Lou Samuels has her first birthday. We were the first to report it. The rest of you suck!

[Image via Getty]

This has to be Serena Torrey:

"We think of it as a reenactment of what's been reported, and not original reporting," a spokeswoman for the magazine told us. "We draw from a variety of sources, but Page Six is the preeminent gossip column, and the place where most of these celebrities play, so it's no surprise that many of these items are drawn from Page Six. We love Page Six."

Note that the item doesn't mention the NYM flack by name. The Post has never had a problem doing it before, but maybe Page Six just doesn't have the space for it. Or they don't want to give her the attention. But! Allow us to "reenact" this underminey, multi-layered quote for you, translated for the general public. The best part is: no thought went into that email or phone conversation! These people work like machines:

We think of it as a reenactment of what's been reported,

You guys, it's a fucking drawing.

and not original reporting.

You did all the work! Truly. We couldn't do what Page Six does. You know: celebrity gossip, right?

We draw from a variety of sources

Even though we heard about Page Six "exclusives" around town long before they were in print, obvi. We just didn't get around to them. Also, we won't attribute plenty of other people, so you're not alone.

But Page Six is the preeminent gossip column,

You guys are famous, and old! Mostly old.

and the place where most of these celebrities play,

And your rapport with 42 West, PMK/HBH, and every other publicist in town is formidable. You really know how to get those flacks dialing/handing you "tips"!.

so it's no surprise that many of these items are drawn from Page Six.

so it's no surprise that many of these items are drawn from Page Six.

We love Page Six.

We still won't attribute you. Thanks for the good material, scumsuckers. Eat shit and die. But no, really: we love Page Six.

Credit where credit's due: publicists are wordsmiths in their own right.

"Being the big man on campus no longer means being the life of the party," the New York Times reports, citing the case of poor Florida quarterback Tim Tebow (pictured), who has had "four or five" women try to strip off their tops while posing for digital photos with him. Tebow runs, but can he hide?

Apparently not, as cellphones are now collected even at college parties, according to the Times, as a precautionary step to protect athletes against embarrassing pictures on Twitter, Facebook or even our own Deadspin, which is given a shout out in the article. In a country that's increasingly inept at manufacturing anything other than narcissistic, "reality" based media products, it's probably for the best that college students are learning the skills they'll need to eventually sell out their boss or idol online. As for the "victims," the athletes, it's good training for them too. Unless their ultimate goal is to play football for modest wages in lifetime obscurity? Didn't think so.

I once wrote that The Lady Gaga Penis Conspiracy is the birther movement of pop culture, but far more entertaining. I was wrong. The Lady Gaga Penis Conspiracy is the one-armed man of pop culture, and tonight's VMAs could be its grassy knoll. This is exciting, if only because there's a substantial pop culture rumor out there that a chart-topping pop star has a cock. As recently as last week, Lady Gaga quoted her vagina as "offended" by these accusations. Her vagina would say that, though. This is part of the (literal) cover-up. Pay attention. Read between the creases in the fabric.

Much of the nonsense started when Gaga went BlaBla and was quoted as saying:

It's not something that I'm ashamed of, just isn't something that I go around telling everyone. Yes. I have both male and female genitalia, but I consider myself a female. It's just a little bit of a penis and really doesn't interfere much with my life. The reason I haven't talked about it is that it's not a big deal to me. Like come on. It's not like we all go around talking about our vags. I think this is a great opportunity to make other multiple gendered people feel more comfortable with their bodies. I'm sexy, I'm hot. I have both a poon and a peener. Big f*cking deal.

And then the world of pop culture went that's totally ridiculous and completely absurd but OMFG! Lady Gags is a bizarre one—I mean, she's a pop star claiming to be a hermaphrodite—so it could be true.

Then she had a performance where she leaped over a motorcycle and hey, that thing in your pants, IT KINDA LOOKS LIKE IT MIGHT BE A LITTLE PENIS.

Closer examination would reveal that it could be a snag in the fabric, or, I don't know, an enlarged clitoris. Think about it! Clitoromegaly--which, I promise, you do not want to Google Image unless you're a rising OB/GYN—is a "congenital anomaly of the genitalia" in which basically the clitoris could be mistaken for a very small penis. Lady GaGa, in all of her infinite wisdom and ego, might have mistaken this for a penis. And she did sing "Poker Face," which, come on. Think of the innuendos. People didn't think "Blister In The Sun" was about masturbation—why, I don't know, because it really is—until the Violent Femmes were like, yes, it's about masturbation. "Poker Face" is about Lady Gaga using her genitalia to, well, poke the face of her victims. To the lyrics!

I wanna roll with him a hard pair we will be
A little gambling is fun when you're with me I love it)
Russian Roulette is not the same without a gun
And baby when it's love if its not rough it isn't fun, fun

The gun, of course, being her dick.

Gawker's Brian Moylan went looking for Lady Gaga's elusive penis in her OUT magazine photoshoot, which didn't have any crotch shots, clothed or otherwise. He came back empty-handed.

Dodai over at Sister Jez went over some of the speculation and quotes Lady Gaga had in the lead-up to her VMA performance, in a strident, beautiful defense of the batshit insanity that is Lady Gaga's career. Among the better ones:

I would say that the fashion for the performance is a representation of the most stoic and memorable martyrs of fame in history. It's intended to be an iconic image that represents people. I think after watching the performance and maybe studying it after you watch it on YouTube, you'll see the references and the symbols come through.

You knew we were gonna go here. Recently, medical tests proved that South African sprinter Caster Semenya was more or less a hermaphrodite, or at least, has a condition that makes her gender slightly more difficult to fit into one of two choices. Caster Semenya and Lady Gaga could be the first in a series of reveals that will shock and change pop culture forever.

As far as pop culture rumors go, however, this kind of thing has disappointing precedent.

Finally, we're not the only ones to hear these rumblings. The Awl heard speculation of such insanity, and commenter Momo/Rod Townsend hears the same. And if two blogs think so, then there might be something to this. A nation awaits with baited breath. Penis or no penis, Lady Gaga has commanded our attention. Let this terrible urban mythology be put to rest.

Okay, so if Viacom hasn't pulled the video off, you might still be able to watch it here. It's basically, as Maura Johnston put it best, Lady Gaga meets Bunnicula. Either way, just know...

I AM NOT MAKING THIS SHIT UP.

But with Sparrow, Shiloh, Apple, Bluebell, Blanket and Kal-El all snatched up, it might seem to the new celeb parent that they are running out of insane name options. To help the busy model/actress/mother save a little time leafing through the thesaurus, we've suggested a few ready to go names for the next generation of Young Hollywood.

• Old Latrobe Kardsashian
• Dodo Centrifuge Simpson-Wentz
• Moustache Pandaboy Gosling
• Great Dane-Gayheart
• Michelin Sapphire Klum
• Chinoiserie Dymphna Jolie-Pitt
• Hardy Henson Affleck
• Revenge Validation Aniston
• Sophocles Giraffe Diaz

And, in the unlikely possibility that Ryan Seacrest stickst it to a lady and gets her knocked up:

• Tentacle Lavendar Seacrest

• What have we left out? Tomorrow's celebrity parents need your help? Post your suggestions please!

  [Image via BBaunach's Flickr]

Australian tab New Weekly has a cover with the star looking like she's put on a few pounds. Given all that talk of anorexia a few years ago, you'd think that would be good, right? Wrong! The caption looks forward to the day she gets "healthy." Just last Wednesday Star also did the "Mary-Kate is fat" story, calling her weight gain shocking and saying "bye-bye billion dollar looks, hello bloat."

Star has a long history of railing on Mary-Kate's weight. It started in 2004, when they ran a cover saying she was too thin because of drugs.

They finally believed the actress' claims of anorexia in 2007 (see cover above), but did so by chastising her "stick thin legs" and wondering what is the best way to get her back to health.

Then, in 2008, they did an about face, saying she's headed back to rehab because of drinking and drugs.

There are really only six stories in a gossip glossy: diet (either too skinny or too fat), drugs, boyfriends, weddings, pregnancy and deaths. So just wait, they're soon going to say that the "bloat" is from drugs or bulimia or pregnancy or (gasp) all three! Maybe if everyone wasn't so obsessed with what she's eating, her weight would even itself out naturally. Why not go after Jonah Hill. He's overweight and probably much more in danger of a heart attack than Mary-Kate is in danger of anything other than wearing a bad outfit.

After all, a Dylan flourish would make the disc all the more gift-able!

We already know Murray injected the anesthetic that killed the king of pop, but now Fox News has law enforcement sources saying that Murray is headed for the jailhouse. See, they're reporting on this shit already!

Nothing is good for ratings like good trial, and with all the kookery that went down inside the Jackson inner circle, this one is bound to be a doozy. The timing of the arrest is just subject to one final search warrant being executed next week at an L.A. pharmacy. It's still not clear whether creepy Conrad, who issued a YouTube video statement yesterday, will be allowed to surrender himself in L.A. or if he will be arrested in Houston where he is staying. Segment producers at CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews all hope that wherever they track him down that he flees in a white Bronco down the highway. So do Marsha Clark, Kato Kaelin and Star Jones, who have nothing better to do than be paid commentators.

Dermatologist Klein—who some say is the father of MJ's children, and who tried to insinuate himself into their custody hearing—should also get ready for finger printing. The investigation into his specific role in Jackson's death is still ongoing, but we can expect to see him hauled to the clink in the next two weeks. And if he's already made all these fireworks surrounding the custody trial, just wait until he gets on the stand. It's going to be better than Phil Spector's wig trying on a black leather glove and screaming, "You can't handle the truth!"

Recent weeks have also seen Lady Gaga wearing a coat made of miniature Kermit the frogs for German TV, partying with David Hasselhoff, pleading impending poverty and groping her boobs and mooning, in a nightclub. The latter was prt of a gay pride event; this new incident is surely likewise intended as PR catnip for Gaga's gay fan base, offering the opportunity for endless debate on the nature of human sexuality and our society's need to gender cultural icons.

So it's at least a brow above Spears flashing her vag on the way out of a car. It's downright sociological, kinda! And as a viral phenomenon, it could be even bigger; the supposed confirmation is just psuedo enough to be titillating, an unlinked quote of Gaga saying "Yes. I have both male and female genitalia... It's just a little bit of a penis." Given the singer's motor-scooter-shimmy and tiny skirt in the video below, it's hard to imagine she didn't intend to reveal something:

Is hermaphrodism officially the last gender-sexuality combination still reliably considered freaky, in a titillating way, around the world? Quite possibly!

There were pap pictures of the Obamas vacationing in Hawaii and transitioning in Chicago, but the mean streets of Capitol Hill have probably never been the scene of a shot sold to People or stolen by Perez. Not because DC and Capitol Hill are off-limits to the paparazzi, but because they're boring. DC pictures don't sell. Why would they? Do you care where Representative Peter DeFazio's LAs are drinking tonight? No. (They're drinking at the Hawk & Dove, btw.)

But, you know, the Obamas are celebrities! And so John McCain's shitty summer 2008 campaign strategy has finally sort of come to pass. Barack Obama is not Paris Hilton, but his wife and kids are Kate + 8.

(Though one imagines Secret Service presence will continue to make these shots something of a rarity.)

Even more fun: when the set initially went up on INF's site, one of the shots was a close-up of the first lady's stomach. BABY BUMP??? (It has since been deleted.)

[Pictures: INFphoto.com]

Former Billboard writer and senior editor Chuck Taylor recently attended a charity event where poor Gwyneth was forced at gunpoint into be the guest of honor and wrote about the experience on his blog.

The press gathered on a balcony above the setting for the $375-a-plate dinner as Paltrow entered amid the typical madness and mania that accompanies any celeb standing in front of camera crews. If you've never seen it, you'd almost pity the star (until, of course, you remember that this is a responsibility of their choice to be in the public eye), as photogs shout out, "Gwyneth, look here." "Look to the right." "Smile." "Turn your head." "You look great." "Hey, Gwyneth, turn around." "Look over your shoulder." "Can you smile again?" It's truly bombast like nothing else in the entertainment business, and you wonder how these folks manage to look relaxed and smile ever so sweetly.

Then again, you consider that an actress like Paltrow makes $10 million per picture... and empathy evaporates. Deal with it. For that reason, it was astonishing to hear the disgruntled comments from the press on the elevator, as we were hurried back to the lobby, that Miss Gwyneth was overheard telling her publicist, "I'm done. Get the roaches out of here," referring to those very photographers that deliver her pictures to the wire services, newspapers and weekly celebrity magazines, helping her maintain any semblance of relevance.

Poor Gwyneth. She's like the Harriet Tubman of modern celebrities, just out there doing everything she can to liberate the masses with colon-cleanses, butt-toning exercises and tasty chicken-roasting recipes. So why do you media "roaches" insist on strapping Her Goopiness to a muddy stump and lashing her with your stinging whips, because that's exactly what you're doing every time you take Gwyneth's picture at a charity event, okay! Leave Gwyneth alone!

Kutcher pointedly notes his lack of compensation in the attached clip from Monday's Tonight Show. He even mentions equity; is Kutcher hinting he'd like some pre-IPO shares in the hot microblogging startup? He's certainly put in sweat equity, and not just by uploading pictures of his scantily-clad wife: Kutcher has posted some 3,000 tweets to his 3 million followers. Oprah Winfrey, in contrast, has written just 56 tweets, to 2 million followers.

The cover is a before/after spread, tied to a story about how Simpson has "already peeled off 10 pounds in 10 days" (last time around, Us had her losing "20 pounds in two months"). Their "Before!" picture is from a couple weeks after Simpson's infamous chili cookoff pics surfaced and ex-boyfriend Tony Romo took her to the Waverly Inn for Valentine's Day:

Click for larger images

Now, OK! hasn't laid eyes on the allegedly svelte Jessica Simpson, that's just what "sources" told them. So to illustrate Simpon's purported weight loss, it went to the photo archives and found a picture of her jogging on the set of Major Movie Star in September 2007, more than a year before, we'd point out, the picture labeled with the big "BEFORE!" caption:

It would appear the cash-bleeding celebrity weekly really is done paying for fresh art.

Here's how Gawker's sworn enemy explained her delight in Twitter to Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast:

"First of all, you don't have to spend any time on it, and, second of all, you reach a lot more people. And I don't have to ‘befriend' and do all that other dippy stuff that they do on Facebook."

Oh god, friendships. Those are almost as bad as actual effort! Which Stewart also loves to avoid:

"With minimal effort-and I really mean it: I spend less than five minutes a day on Twitter-I have been able to garner over 1 million followers in a 4½-month period, with very few tweets, by the way."

By shirking her social networking, Stewart allows herself more time to hang out with media sophisticates like those who host NBC's Today show. That's them laughing uproariously when Martha says everyone in the South loves to "suck on the heads" of shrimp, in the clip above.

That Martha Stewart openly and repeatedly brags about how little effort she puts into her self-promoting, 1-million-follower having Twitter stream really tells you something about why celebrities are drawn to the microblogging service. By not requiring them to "follow" their followers, it allows them to reproduce the one-way broadcast dynamics of old media.

Celebrities who try to get more engaged with the unwashed internet masses on Twitter and the like all too often find the experience unnerving. So the rest just stick with a broadcast model. Which is fine, whatever, but it just goes to show that celebrities on Twitter are more a distraction from the service's genuinely transformative uses than an example of it — and why the startup shouldn't be bending over backwards to placate them.

(Pic: Martha Stewart with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone at the Webby Awards in June. Getty Images.)