Twitter and The Oprah Effect
Author: admin // Category: UncategorizedEveryone wants Oprah to endorse their product because her backing usually translates into healthy sales and dollars and cents added to the profit column.
We have seen it with books where she has turned unknown authors into literary stars because of her choice. When Amazon launched the Kindle, Oprah was the one that boosted it from a nice tech toy to a must have item.
Figures just out show that the Kindle 2 has already sold 300,000 since its release in late February. It is selling at roughly double the rate of the first generation device which sold around 400,000 units. Analysts reckon the Kindle 2 will hit the one million sales mark this year.
Well now Oprah is turning her attention to another piece of technology that has long been the darling of Silicon Valley and that is the microblogging service Twitter.
On her Facebook page and her programme website, Orpah has said she will be talking to the “King of Twitter - Ashton Kutcher…and sending her very first tweet!”
The actor is presently locked in a Twitter battle with CNN Breaking News to pull in one million followers. He has offered all kinds prizes to the person who actually becomes the one millionth follower and also said he will “ding-dong-ditch Ted Turner’s house while I am in Atlanta.”
Mr Turner who founded CNN no longer runs the network. The challenge has ‘fired up’ CNN Anchor Larry King who has responded with a video on YouTube basically saying bring it on pretty boy.
“Are you putting me on? Are you kidding? Do you know how big a network we are? Do you know what CNN is? Kutcher, you’re playing out of your field. CNN will bury you,” said Mr King, with a wry smile on his face.
Okay so a fun sidebar to the latest chapter in the Twitter story. But there is no doubt that for Ashton Kutcher, who presently ranks at number 3 behind CNN on Twitter, being crowned the “King of Twitter” by Oprah will boost his following.
For Twitter, it will take the service to a whole new level. Figures show the popularity of being able to tell people what you are doing in 140 carachters is catching on, big style.
According to Compete, a Web analytics firm, Twitter had 14 million unique visitors in March, up from 8 million in February.
When founder Ev Williams’ tweeted yesterday that “Tomorrow just became a very big day,” journalists and bloggers in the Valley went into overdrive speculating that a deal was about to be announced with Google.
Some might say having Oprah in your corner is an even bigger deal. No doubt the Twitter management will be working like crazy for the moment when Oprah sends her first tweet live on national tv. Could you imagine if she got the famous Fail Whale that shows the service is overloaded?
One person, writing on Oprah’s Facebook page, has a $100 bet on Twitter going down in its hour of glory.





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