(CNN) -- It was on the pages of newspapers and in the coveted aisle seat on television's "At the Movies" that the world met Roger Ebert, the passionate lover and sometimes combative critic of film who virtually defined cinema critique for a generation. But in his final years, when cancer had robbed him of his jawbone and whittled away his once ample frame, it was social media, particularly Twitter, that let Ebert not only keep talking, but also interact with his fans, and foes, more freely and personally than ever. "Twitter for me performs the function of a running conversation," Ebert wrote in June 2010, about eight months after he signed up for the site and five years after losing his vocal chords and part of his lower jaw to thyroid and salivary gland cancer. "For someone who cannot speak, it allows a way to unload my zingers and one-liners."
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When cancer stole his ability to speak, Roger Ebert went to Twitter for "zingers and one-liners"
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Analyst says Ebert naturally understood the back-and-forth nature of social media
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He talked movies, but also debated issues from politics to religion on the site
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Ebert felt "incredibly fortunate" to live in the Internet age in his final years
If Twitter was made for @placeholder, Ebert was, in the end, made for Twitter.