Click here for a photo gallery of "A Conversation with David Letterman and Biz Stone."
David Letterman, Ball State's iconic alumnus, made his first appearance on campus in three years to host a conversation with the co-founder of Twitter, a company that announced changes this week making it more similar to Facebook.
Twitter was buzzing all afternoon as students looked for the celebrities around campus. Biz Stone spoke with students during a forum in the afternoon, while Letterman didn't make it to campus until just before the event.
President Jo Ann Gora encouraged students to tweet their questions and reactions throughout the conversation.
"You know, we usually tell you to turn off your cell phones at events like this, but tonight it's a little different," she said.
When Letterman walked on stage, the auditorium exploded with cheers.
"It's great to be back at Ball State University, home of the Cardinals," he said. "As you know, the fiercest robin-sized bird in the animal kingdom."
The auditorium was packed. Even Happy Friday Guy made an appearance, yelling his usual "Happy Friday!" as he walking up and down the aisle. From the back seats, students yelled "Letterman!" and cheered while they waited for the "Late Show" host to make his way on stage.
After a brief monologue, Letterman welcomed Stone to the stage.
Stone's speech focused on his life experiences and how they affected him. He discussed how Twitter was created and how he thinks something as simple as Twitter has more functionality than just posting what a person is doing.
He talked about how, by mistake, he created a social media site that now has more than 165 million registered users.
"Mistakes are opportunities to display character," he said.
During the conversation, Letterman asked Stone whether he thought Twitter would destroy the English language because of the constraint of space.
Stone said he and co-founder Evan Williams were motivated by the idea of most mobile phones having a 160-character limit, adding that he thought the constraints required users to be creative in how they expressed themselves.
After Stone's thorough explanation, Letterman simply responded, "I understood very little of what you said."
The conversation between Letterman and Stone seemed help students open more to accept or continue using Twitter.
Freshman telecommunications major Stuart Hotwagner said that being a telecommunications major he hears about how communication is going toward social media and the internet, but after listening to Stone talking about social media, he felt more positive about using the micro-blogging site.
"I liked how he said that with the future of social media and twitter he hoped it would make people feel like a global citizen," he said. "I'm going to go home a start a twitter account. It sounds easy and it sounds fun."
At one point, Letterman admitted he was wearing borrowed socks from Gora's husband. Once students started to file out, he took the socks off and attempted to hand them back to the Ball State president before leaving them on the table.
Students rushed to get their tickets or notebooks signed, while members of Sigma Chi fraternity, of which Letterman is a member, offered him T-shirts and cards. Other students and faculty had Letterman talk with their families and friends through the phone, and some of the more daring got a picture with him.
Despite Stone's comments, Letterman did not seem persuaded to join the social media site. When Letterman was asked if he would create his own Twitter account, he dismissed the idea.
"What [Stone] didn't tell you," he joked, "is that those things give off tremendous amounts of radiation."
Check Monday's issue of The Ball State Daily News for more coverage of the Letterman-Stone conservation.
Jack Meyer contributed to this report.
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