Gerd Leonhard went public with Futerati, a Twitter-API-based site that brings together the eclectic assortment of people that inspire his thinking. Basically, Gerd has curated his extensive personal collection of tweeps into six categories: futurists, thought leaders authors, activists, startups, and others.

A brief comment explains why each person is included, and of course it offers their latest tweets and a link for clicking through to that person’s Twitter profile for more information and ease of following.

“One of the most important realizations that has recently transpired via my Twitter pipeline is how much I am gaining from the ever increasing Sharism i.e. by what others are sharing with me,” Gerd explains, adding that Futerati is a way of paying it forward.

(Title lyric from Jack Johnson.)

Application developers 9astronauts have created Billie Tweets, an art project they refer to as “a Twitter tribute to Michael Jackson.” Basically it plays the incomparable Billie Jean video, featuring Michael Jackson at the height of his powers, accompanied by a waterfall of random tweets that have each word of the lyrics highlighted in order, kinda like Twitter karaoke. The effect is oddly hypnotic.

(Title lyric from Pearl Jam.)

One of the events honoring Michael Jackson provides a test for judging who “gets” Web 2.0. Basically, any entertainment executive who doesn’t understand why the Liverpool Street moonwalk flash mob was wonderful should hire someone who does.

Here’s what happened. The Prince of Pop died Thursday afternoon here in Los Angeles. The brilliant Rob Manuel, 8 hours ahead in London, woke up to the news and Twittered that a tribute flash mob would be fun. By 6 pm London time, Milo Yiannopoulos had  leveraged the power of social networking into having many hundreds of otherwise unaffiliated people gather to dance (or at least happily mill about – see picture) to Billie Jean at one of London’s busiest commuter rail stations.

(Title lyric by Michael Jackson. Image borrowed from here.)

A piece in the Economist analyzes the media coverage of the protests in Iran is more nuanced than its headline indicates: Twitter 1, CNN 0.

It notes that when the violence flared on June 13, CNN was showing a repeat of Larry King interviewing the mechanics of Monster Garage.

Meanwhile, Twitter and YouTube were flooded with information and images as they provided an infrastructure for an international exchange.

The article goes on to discuss how the traditional media picked up, and how “desk-bound bloggers” like Nico Pitney of the Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic and Robert Mackey/ of the New York Times brought a journalistic discipline to what had by then become a tsunami of frequently useless or redundant data.

President Obama warned Irani officials that, “The world is watching.” But that was only made possible because of what many people previously dismissed as toys and gadgets.

There are, of course, those who disagree with me.

(Photo is of Neda Soltani. Title lyric by Iggy Pop.)

Screenwriter/director John August has been engaging in some personal experimentation with emerging media [NY Times, login]. He has about 6,000 Twitter followers, most of whom presumably are fans of his work on movies including Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the underrated The Corpse Bride and The Nines.

August tested a story with some of those fans, made changes influenced by their comments, and then personally formatted the finished result for Kindle. “The Variant,” as the story is called, is now available for 99 cents through Amazon or as a 25-page PDF file on e-junkie.com (I couldn’t find it there, though, which may just reflect on me or the site’s search options). August said he has made “about enough to buy four Kindles” so far.

(Title lyric from the Beastie Boys.)

Kevin Spacey and producer Rob Luketic have publicly added themselves to the roster of well-known people who will abandon Twitter if Reveille / Brillstein Entertainment’s proposed tv show goes ahead.

There is a growing chorus of protest from celebrities at Reveille Productions (home of the U.S. versions of The Office and Ugly Betty) and Brillstein Entertainment’s idea of using Twitter as the basis for an interactive reality show.

According to the press release, which was slipped to a few outlets under cover of the holiday, the show will put “ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.”

The proposed show would be executive produced by Amy Ephron (sister of Norah Ephron).

Among those tweeting their vociferous objections are Alyssa Milano, Sara Gilbert and Demi Moore. As Moore put it, in the Twitter-allotted 140 characters, “If that show happens we will all leave and there will be no show.”

Ashton Kutcher, who besides being an actor also knows about unscripted programming, later added: “It’s all fun and games until somebody gets stalked.”

The not-famous are objecting, too. Nearly 500 people signed up to “follow” user No_Tweet_Show within the first hour the account went live, which was shortly after #nottwittertv showed up in the top ten of Twitter’s trending topics chart.

There’s already a book coming out in October that is simply a collection of tweets. HarperCollins got ex-Gawker Nick Douglas to edit it, and he put up a website to which people were invited to send their favorite tweets.  Although it’s not officially affiliated, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone encouraged Twitter users to participate.

At least Douglas is asking permission first and giving credit to contributors, even if he did disingenuously claim in the site’s FAQ: “It’s not about wringing money out of you.”

(Title lyric from OK Go.)

Speaking of traditional media, Twitter offers up some intriguing statistics regarding the entertainment industry’s trades. Variety has 10,247 followers (ranked 2,176th on Twitterholic) and the Hollywood Reporter has 569 followers (unranked on Twitterholic).

Then there are the newer kids on the block. Deadline Hollywood Daily has 6,672 followers, while The Wrap has 638 followers.

I would have thought Twitter was a natural medium for the kind of news the industry thrives on – box office, signings, acquisitions, quotes from relevant people, even who was seen with whom at Craft. Are the disseminators doing it wrong, does their audience not Twitter, or is there a third explanation?

(Title lyric from Dan Bern and Mike Viola, for the Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story OST.)

Stephen Fry is an avid social media guy among his many other interests. Several weeks ago his ecumenical mind caused him to tweet about the Campaign to Save Bletchley Park, a move to preserve the birthplace of the computer and the home of WWII’s most important decoding efforts.

One thing led to another, and soon Stephen was at the house unveiling griffins, inspecting the Enigma machine, and naturally twittering about the whole experience. That means he spread the word to the roughly half a million people who follow his tweets and who now know more about an important historical site.

(Title lyric by Adam Ant/Marco Pirroni.)