Twitter: The Best Of The Week (April 18-24, 2009)

Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 5:26 pm

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This is a weekly series that looks at the best Twitter-related stories, news and articles within the Twittersphere over the last seven days. You can read previous entries in our archives.

Oprah

Oprah finally submitted her first tweet to the Twittersphere, and quickly received a lesson in social media from Shaquille O’Neal. It wasn’t long before she had an army of followers some half-a-million strong, giving a massive boost to the entire Twitter network. At the time of writing she is following 10 people, most of which are celebrities.

Here Before Oprah?

Were you on Twitter before Oprah joined? What about Ashton? Does it matter?

Researchers Turn Thoughts Into Tweets

The University of Wisconsin’s Neural Interfaces lab has built something that’s not far short of a miracle – a software system that reads brain patterns and converts those signals into Twitter updates.

Five Ways To Get Your Questions Answered On Twitter

Five sites that scan Twitter’s hive mind for the solutions to your problems, courtesy of Mashable. (Also from Mashable: “The Seven Ways To Approach Twitter“.)

Twitter Changes The Rules

As of April 20, Twitter has changed the number of accounts that a single user can follow in a day to 1000. It seems wise, but unless those people follow you back, what exactly can you do with that? Hard to spam somebody who isn’t following you.

Ignore Twitter At Your Peril

It’s been a big week for scandal. Amazon, Dominos and CNN all had some damage repair to take care of, thanks to events that broke and had legs on Twitter.

Twitter Personality Test

Have your Twitter personality tested with Twanalyst. Seems everybody who does more than a handful of submissions a day is a spammer.

(It also ranks me as a celebrity, so take it with a hefty pinch.)

94% Of CNN’s Audience Doesn’t Use Twitter

Are we really that surprised? 94% of America doesn’t use Twitter. Although 19 million people worldwide do.

Undirect Messages

Over the past 48 hours, many users started receiving direct messages that weren’t actually sent to them. Twitter assures us that the problem is now resolved, but they’re said that about lots of things.

Mikeyy Returns

Another burst of the Mikeyy worm last weekend, but this time he was a lot more philosophical, and to be honest actually quite amusing. Refreshingly, Twitter took care of him pretty quickly. Will the network get hit again tomorrow? Stay tuned to find out.