Oprah Tweets, Twitter Volume Up 43%

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Last week, Oprah Winfrey decided to have a go at Twitter. She invited company CEO Evan Williams on her show for a demo session, signed up, and fired off her first tweet:

HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.

As a result, Twitter experienced a huge one-day jump in traffic, to the tune of a 43% increase. On April 17, 37% of those who visited Twitter were first-time users.

Almost overnight, Oprah had well over 450,000 tweeting followers. But not everyone was happy about the arrival of the big O. Many angry tweets were fired off accusing the Winfrey crowd of slowing down the network, a claim that Williams denied.

“The slowness had nothing to do with @Oprah,” he insisted.

My own mother sent me an e-mail this morning telling me she’d joined Twitter, but was unsure what, exactly, she was supposed to do with it. Well, now we all have our answer to that question: Follow Oprah’s every waking thought.