On Thursday, Roger Ebert, the legendary film critic and Pulitzer Prize winner, sadly passed away at the age of 70.
Although most fans recognize Ebert’s iconic body of work in terms of his equally famous “thumbs up” accolade, the venerable Chicago Sun-Times columnist was also a visionary in technology and social networking.
A prolific early user of social media, Ebert loved connecting with fans on Facebook and Twitter.
From the Chicago Sun-Times:
Always technically savvy — he was an early investor in Google — Ebert let the Internet be his voice. His rogerebert.com had millions of fans, and he received a special achievement award as the 2010 “Person of the Year” from the Webby Awards, which noted that “his online journal has raised the bar for the level of poignancy, thoughtfulness and critique one can achieve on the Web.” His Twitter feeds had 827,000 followers.
In 2010, Ebert stated that he did not fear death because there was nothing “on the other side of death to fear… I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.”
“I am grateful for the gifts of intelligence, love, wonder and laughter,” Ebert said. “You can’t say it wasn’t interesting.”