Conan O'Brien joins Twitter and doubles Jay Leno's follower count in two hours [Updated]
Conan O'Brien may not have had any fans in the NBC Universal boardroom, but there was perhaps no stronger congregation of Coco supporters than on Twitter.
The social network quickly rushed to a profile page for @ConanOBrien that began tweeting on Wednesday.
Twitter spokesman Sean Garrett confirms that the account does indeed belong to O'Brien, and the page has since been updated with the company's "verified" stamp of approval.
However, even while doubts about the account's legitimacy lingered, O'Brien snowballed, picking up tens of thousands of followers in an hour. Barely one hour after his first tweet, he surpassed "The Jay Leno Show's" official Twitter profile, which has been around since April 2009. In just a couple of hours, he doubled Leno's 30,000 or so followers.
[Updated at 6 p.m. "Conan O'Brien" is now on Twitter's list of worldwide trending topics, a barometer of the hottest terms in tweets.]
Of course, a big contingent of Twitter followers does not equal ratings -- a reality that Justin Halpern's "Stuff My Dad Says" will have to test with his CBS pilot.
O'Brien's first tweet embodies his polarizing, quirky humor:
Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.
-- Mark Milian
twitter.com/markmilian
