Leo Laporte at the controls during a recent episode of This Week in Tech (TWiT). In the background is Digg founder Kevin Rose. Credit: insidetwit / Flickr Last year, Leo Laporte became a Twitter quitter.
The host of one of Silicon Valley’s most popular podcasts was none too excited that of all the names in the world, the burgeoning message service had picked one that hit piercingly close to home. The online broadcasting network that Laporte owns and runs from a cottage in Petaluma is called TWiT.tv, after his company’s flagship show, “This Week in Tech.”
The rise of Twitter has long been a favorite topic of conversation on TWiT, and with an audience of around 150,000, Laporte found himself in a strange pickle: The more he talked about Twitter on his show, the more followers he accrued — and the more publicity he gave his brand rival.
“I thought, jeez, I’m building value in this company that is ultimately vying for my trademark,” he said recently via phone. “So I left.”
But in spite of his absence, Laporte still became the most-followed user on the service, beating out front-runners like then-Sen. Barack Obama for the top spot, with more than 30,000 followers. Walking away from a megaphone that big just didn’t seem like good business. So he came back.
“They kind of have you,” said Laporte, who now has more than 100,000 followers on the service. “The same way that Facebook has you: because you have to go where the community is.”
Still, being in thrall to Twitter hasn’t stopped Laporte from joining a conversation that’s taking hold on the service’s fringes. As this group of Web subversives sees it, the once- tiny Twitter has grown like a magic beanstalk into a full-fledged communications medium — taking its place alongside Web pages, e-mail and maybe even television. And though the 30-person, San Francisco start-up is not exactly General Electric, digital trust-busters believe the same rules apply: One company shouldn’t have a monopoly ...
... on an entire medium — even if it invented it.
“Those of us who are participating are pumping value into this closed system and trusting that Twitter will do the right thing with it," said Laporte, referring to the tweets users pour into Twitter's databases every day by the million.
People love the convenience and reach of social media systems like Twitter, he said. “But what they ignore is that there’s a dark side to all of that, which is that these companies have a huge amount of control over what’s going on."
