Oprah Joins Twitter's 1M Club

High proportion of Twitter quittersi mean 'Oprah effect' is overstated

(NEWSER) - Twitter's sign-up figures are skyrocketing but the site's reach will remain limited to less than a tenth of online consumers unless it can reduce the proportion of quitters, Neilsen exec David Martin tells AdAge. Over 60% of people who get a Twitter account soon abandon the service, according to Neilsen figures, meaning that surges in user numbers like the recent "Oprah effect" are hugely overstated. More»

(NEWSER) - Still learning the ropes of microblogging, Oprah Winfrey posted her first tweet this morning, the Chicago Tribune reports. In her first tweet—“HI TWITTERS . THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY”—she committed the Twitter faux pas of writing in all caps and using the wrong term for Twitter adherents, or "Tweeple.” Nonetheless, her feed already has 103,000 followers—and the number is climbing by the second. More»

(NEWSER) - If Twitter isn’t already a certified American phenomenon, it becomes so tomorrow—Oprah will issue her first tweet. Winfrey just signed up for an account and already has 35,000 followers (and counting, quickly) despite her tweetlessness, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. She will tweet during her show, joined by Twitterer extraordinaire Ashton Kutcher and, possibly, Twitter executive Evan Williams. More»

Here's a tip: No one cares about your food

(NEWSER) - If you want to avoid driving away all the Twitter followers you've accumulated, you may want to take a look at this list from Katie Heaney on BuzzFeed of 11 things that will really, really annoy them:

• Using your followers as Google: If you want to know what restaurant to visit in a new city, just look it up yourself.
• Tweeting about what you're eating: Absolutely no one cares, unless you're a famous chef. Assuming you're just a normal person, "just put food in your mouth about three times a day, chew it quietly, and swallow. There are no other necessary actions."

We only actually like 36% of what shows up in our stream: study

(NEWSER) - A new study in the Harvard Business Review confirms what you probably already know if you've spent any time on Twitter: Just 36% of tweets are actually worth reading. Another 39% are "just OK," and a full quarter aren't worth your time. That's according to 1,443 users, who evaluated 43,738 tweets. The tweets that scored the best were funny or exciting thoughts, tweets that shared information or asked questions, and even self-promoting tweets—particularly those that included links. More»