The power of Oprah

Apparently there is no better way of ensuring your product is a success than getting a positive mention on the Oprah Winfrey show. We often talk about how there is no more powerful a recommendation than from your friends and loved ones, but it seems that in fact all those graphs we see over and over again in social media presentations are incorrect - at the top of the heap should be an Oprah recommendation (which I've never seen in a powerpoint deck above recommendation from a friend, followed by search engines).

Quite recently Oprah publicly blessed a little known web service called Twitter. In the wake of this recommendation someone at TechCrunch took it upon himself to do some math, based on shaky assumptions to estimate that Twitter gained 1.2 million registered members as a result of Oprah's golden touch.

I think she's secretly a Twitter investor, looking to drive up its potential sale price as it has been rumoured that Google are looking to buy them imminently. Either that or she just really likes Twitter.

Posted by: Ramzi at Time for MacGyver on Monday, 20th April 2009