Opinion: Obama’s Oprah has big Twitter week; Watch out Ashton Kutcher
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It has been a week since Oprah Winfrey sent her first tweet read round the Twittersphere, and it sent many, including those in the world of politics, into a twizzy.
In the short period of time since creating her Twitter account, Winfrey has cut the lead between her number of followers and those of top Twitter users, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN (@cnnbrk), in half. After quickly amassing 561,000 followers, some bloggers are wondering how long before the TV icon takes the No. 1 spot.
Others are trying to measure what effect @Oprah has had on Twitter’s growth in the last week.
While Winfrey seems to have aptly adopted the short-blogging service rather quickly, posting behind-the-scenes video footage and announcing show cancellations on her Twitter page, she has yet to fully grasp the lingo.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd points out that Winfrey incorrectly addressed the Twitter audience as ‘Twitters’ instead of ‘Twitterers,’ the preferred term, in her first message.
Later, she called them ‘tweeters’ -- the name of a high-frequency loudspeaker. Well, at least Winfrey is no longer tweeting in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Which is considered bad form by those who don’t have much else to think about.
Others have used Twitter in unusual ways this week. On Monday, we got a collective chuckle when Meghan McCain, the daughter of ...
... the Arizona senator, called Karl Rove, the former political guru for President Bush, ‘creepy’ for following her on Twitter.
On Tuesday, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his candidacy for California governor first to his Twitter following.
The service can also be of use to foreign politicians. The Iraqi government appears to be exploring the idea of promoting transparency through Twitter. European diplomats are already tweeting, albeit uninteresting messages.
Don’t think Twitter is just making a splash on this planet, either. A NASA astronaut says he’ll be the first person to tweet from space -- though, not the first tweet from space; that honor goes to the Mars Phoenix.
How do you top a space tweet? Your move, Oprah.
-- Mark Milian [follow]
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Photo credit: Chris Pizzello / Associated Press