When 6pm local time came and went in countries all across the world with no sign of the rapture, people took to Twitter and Facebook to convey their utter shock. Well, actually more like joke about their own survival of said fake apocalypse. But either way, people were talking.

Four days later, Media Queen Oprah Winfrey broadcast her final show to millions of fans around the world. She too drew the attention of the social sphere and search, as Yahoo reported a 56% spike in Oprah-related searches over the course of the week leading up to the finale.

Which big story do you think received the most attention from the interwebs? The nopocalypse or the Opocalypse?

If you guessed the end of the world, then you would be absolutely correct.

Social media monitoring company The Meltwater Group has sent us a rather awesome infographic about the social media war of the last few days. They analyzed the volume of conversation around both fake-Judgement day and Oprah’s final show on the specific day of said occurrence (May 21st and 25th, respectively). Based on Twitter, Facebook, video comments and other blog sources, the nopocalypse received over 6 times the amount of chatter as Oprah.

I guess despite being a horrible, vile human being, Harold Camping wins in one regard.

The first such initiative is Oprah’s "No Phone Zone", which lets users make a pledge under three different options: no texting, no texting plus handsfree calling only, and no phone use at all while driving. These pledges are then mapped in near real-time using the API, so others can see where and when these pledges were made.

The second initiative is about educating people about state policies related to phone use on the road. There is another map in which users can click on a state to see restrictions on texting, handsfree, and handheld phone use. Users can then click through for more details from the Governors Highway Safety Association, or even contact a state Governor’s office directly.

"Mobile communication has revolutionized the way we live, but unfortunately, irresponsible use has also made the roads more dangerous," says Jesse Friedman, a Google Product Marketing Manager. "In 2008, nearly 6000 people lost their lives in the US and more than half a million people were injured in police-reported crashes during which some form of driver distraction was reported — and according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, cell phone use was a major contributor to that."

I’ll go out on a limb and say Google does not want you to view these maps on your phone while you’re driving. Oprah’s site has more info about the No Phone Zone initiative.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed consumer fraud lawsuits against three suppliers and an affiliate marketer of acai berry products charging the companies lure customers with free online trial offers via aggressive Internet marketing tactics and then charge their credit cards prematurely.

 "For thousands of dieters, the quest for a miracle product has become a nightmare," said Attorney General Madigan. "Far too often, consumers end up losing their money – not weight – in these deals."

Lisa Madigan
Illinois Attorney General

 In addition, Harpo, Inc, producers of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "The Dr. Oz Show" along with Dr. Mehmet Oz, filed a trademark infringement complaint against 40 Internet marketers of dietary supplements, including acai berry products among others. Neither Winfrey nor Dr. Oz ever endorsed any acai berry or dietary supplement.

 Named in the lawsuits are Advanced Wellness Research, Crush LLC and its owner, TMP Nevada, Inc. and Larby Amirouche, an affiliate marketer that uses search engines, pop-up ads, websites, and advertising on social networks to drive traffic to suppliers websites.

 The complaint alleges that many consumers did not receive shipment of the trial supplements before they were billed and the companies made it nearly impossible to cancel future orders.

 The suits are asking the court for a permanent injunction barring the companies from selling dietary supplements and continuing with misleading marketing schemes. The lawsuits also ask the court to pay restitution for consumers who have lost money and civil penalties of $50,000 for violating consumer fraud laws.

 "We must hold these Internet scammers accountable for their role in a seedy marketing game that steers unsuspecting consumers to online schemes," Madigan said.

 "We also need to send a clear message to other marketers and networks in the business of designing misleading, traffic enticing schemes."

What Matthew found was that there was a significantly larger number of new registrations in April – the month Oprah joined, which caused a well-publicized surge in new Twitter users. So naturally, the next month didn’t see as many new users flocking to Twitter, but it was still i decent increase from the month before Oprah joined.

Daines has now shared a new graph with me, which seems to suggest Twitter is still growing just fine. June shows that new registrations are right at what they were in April, when Oprah joined, which means that there are quite a few new people.

We should be able to get a really good idea of Twitter’s growth when we can take a look at July’s numbers in a month. At that point, we can see which direction the trend goes. I think we’re going to see growth though. Take a look at this other graph Daines shared with me, which shows the number of tweets. It looks like there is a lot more tweeting going on.

"Looks like the total tweets chart shows that the claim last month that Twitter traffic had come to a stop was not quite accurate," says Daines. "The total tweet numbers are not exact, but should be within a few hundred thousand."

So, do you think we will consider to see significant Twitter growth as the year goes on? Or do you believe Twitter as already peaked? Share your thoughts.

Now celebrities such as Oprah and PuffDaddy P Diddy Diddy (among others) carry the following Verified Account badge.

What does this mean for everyday Twitter users? The Twitter verified accounts help page says the following…

With this feature, you can easily see which accounts we know are ‘real’ and authentic. That means we’ve been in contact with the person or entity the account is representing and verified that it is approved. (This does not mean we have verified who, exactly, is writing the tweets.)

This also does not mean that accounts without the ‘Verified Account’ badge are fake. The vast majority of accounts on the system are not impersonators, and we don’t have the ability to check 100% of them.

Currently the badge can only be found on a handful of high-profile accounts (celebrities, athletes, musicians, etc.) But, you can expect more to be added as celebrities and other public figures want to prove their legitimacy to followers.

It should be noted that Twitter isn’t testing this feature with businesses yet, but I’d say you could expect this feature fairly soon.

Are you glad Twitter added this feature? Tell us.
 

The fact is, that numbers supplied from research firms are often off a bit, and they should usually be taken with a grain of salt. The indication however, was that Twitter growth had pretty much screeched to a halt. That really might not be the whole picture though.

You know how Oprah gave Twitter a huge boost? It’s possible that she might also be one reason that Twitter at first glance has appeared to level out as seen in this Compete graph:

Matthew Daines, the lead developer of our own Twitter app, Twellow, showed me another graph that he put together from the user IDs he found in the Twitter API, based on when they registered with Twitter.

As you can see from this graph, total registrations have continued to increase, though they have gone down slightly in a month’s time. If you look closer, you’ll notice that May’s number is still higher than March’s, although it’s down from April. You know why April was so high though? You guessed it. OPRAH!

"When you take into account Oprah followers coming online in April, registration numbers show the growth hasn’t stopped, just that April was an abnormal month due to Oprah fans," Daines points out. "Growth has slowed, but not stopped…these are actual numbers from the Twitter API."

As I tried to convey in the previous article, I think the "end times for Twitter" talk is a bit exaggerated. Although there are still a lot of valid points made about retention and how many people are actually using Twitter actively.

In addition, "This doesn’t take into account any suspended or defunct accounts, but overall I think it gives a good picture of new users coming online with Twitter," Daines notes.

A WebProNews reader left a comment on the previous article suggesting that the number of followers or those who are only following a small number probably accounts for a lot of people who are just using Twitter to communicate with friends and family. Perhaps it is a bit hasty to throw them into the borderline non-users category.

Of course her impact has its supporters and detractors. Hitwise reports some pretty strong numbers around the posting of her first tweet last Friday. Interestingly, the chart below may also reflect the promotion leading up to the event itself more than anything else.

Share of US Internet visits to Twitter increased 24% on Friday, April 17, the day of Oprah’s first Tweet. Comparing visits with the previous Friday, visits were up 43%.

So what does this all mean? Once again the best and safest answer is “Who knows?” For those who have decided that Twitter is only for the tragically hip they are still in mourning. Nothing can kill cool more quickly that a major influx of mommy jeans. Of course, an actual real concern is the fact with so many users getting on board, the notorious Fail Whale may be around more than any Twitterer would like. Don’t blame that on Oprahphiles though because that one falls squarely on the shoulders of the Twitter tech delivery team.

Many of these Twitter veterans are Internet marketing types as well and while there may be some consternation around this ‘uncooling’ of Twitter, this event should actually trigger a full blown celebration. Why? Well, despite all the hubbub about Twitter being such a great business tool, even the most liberal estimates show the number of users currently in the 15 million range. You can join the game of wild speculation and arguing over this number if you choose to do so. The fact of the matter is despite its meteoric rise 15 million people is not a large universe, especially when the bulk of Twitter users have been more tech oriented up until the day Oprah ruined it for their corner of the world.

So for all of you folks who think Twitter is too cool for the rest of the planet you can mark April 17, 2009 as the real Black Friday, a dark day indeed. It was the day that the rest of the world was given the green light to use Twitter. It was the “Day the Tweet Died”.

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Even before Oprah’s Inaugural Tweet (treated with the kind of reverence, awe, and anticipation of Armstrong’s first steps on the moon), a quiet appearance on Twitter just in preparation for last Friday’s program featuring Ashton Kutcher and Twitter founder Evan Williams, Oprah’s account amassed tens of thousands of followers.

The so-called skeptics worried Oprah’s soccer mom legions descending on Twitter would suck the coolness out of the room. (“So-called,” because real skeptics voice realistic concerns and doubts that actually might matter; pretending to worry, especially after the Boomer Facebook invasion, that geeks, teens, and old folks won’t tweet peacefully in their respective corners is akin to the worst kind of cable news what-if, time-filling nonsense.) Ahem…

Au contraire, the Oprah Effect seems to apply just as ferociously to social media as it does to merchandise. Since the show, Oprah’s account has hit nearly half a million followers, and Hitwise reports Twitter saw a 24 percent increase in traffic on Friday, a 43 percent spike over the previous Friday. Though much of that critical mass could be attributed to Kutcher’s and CNN’s publicity stunt race to a million followers, 37 percent of visitors to Twitter were new on Friday.

Oprah’s presence on Twitter revives the question about how much an individual’s Twitter account is worth. One of her earliest tweets—a la “come here, I want to see you”—was an instruction to her assistant to order a Reuben sandwich for her. How much would a specific sandwich shop, a particular brand of rye bread, the maker of a special recipe sauerkraut have paid to be mentioned as an official component of Oprah’s lunch via Twitter?

No wonder Twitter posted that job opening for celebrity schmoozer recently. The endorsement market is still wide open.
 

About 7:30 last night, just about the time the Twitter-battle was being hyped on entertainment news, bookies reached out to my inbox to inform me the odds favored CNN. Odds were even on Kutcher, long on Britney.

“Clearly the world wants to know if Ashton Kutcher will be able to continue his furious rise towards top tweeter, if media giant CNN will retain its firm grip on the number one spot, or if a dark horse emerge at the last minute and take the world by surprise,” said Mickey Richardson, CEO of Bookmaker.com

Ashton live streamed the “historic” event at Ustream.

But the really interesting part of this is the waiting to see what happens with Oprah Winfrey’s account. Before single tweet was made this morning, she had amassed 72,000 followers. Kutcher tweeted he was about to introduce her to Twitter on the show this morning and just a few minutes ago, Oprah greeted the Twitter audience before tweeting to her assistant to order her a reuben sandwich.

Um, seriously? What an odd world. It would almost be Alexandergrahambellish if not so, well, surreal. Just wait till the show airs. Bet Oprah blows way past a million followers and Twitter itself is flooded with new Oprahbot members.

It all does make one wonder how much a Twitter account is worth. When Andrew Baron briefly put up hisTwitter account for auction last year, 1,700 followers seemed like a huge Twitter crowd, and the going rate appeared to be a dollar a follower. It’s not clear how much the Twitter-squatter for CNN’s account received for his partnership, but it does make one wonder what the going rate today is.

AOL Logo
(Photo Credit: AOL)

As for which daytime host would make a good dinner guest Ellen was the choice of 47 percent of respondents followed by Oprah with 14 percent.

The poll results, which were released today, received more than 1.35 million votes, and AOL Television Editor in Chief Scott Robson said the poll was unique for the broad cross-section of people who visit AOL.

"(Our audience) is not just soccer moms. We really do combine everyone from hipsters to people who could care less about what happens on either coast," Robson said.

ABC’s Diane Sawyer on "Good Morning America" was the most popular choice for morning talk show host beating out competitors Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, on NBC’s "Today." Sawyer was preferred as the morning host that people would want to wake to, grabbing 30 percent of the vote, trialed by Lauer with 26 percent and Vieira with 25 percent.

 Diane Sawyer was also voted the most likely to make a good U.S. president receiving 34 percent of the vote, beating out Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and Oprah, both who received 22 percent.

Viewers voted Kelly Ripa of "Live with Regis and Kelly" as both the sexiest talk show host and the one with the best hair, while Larry King of "Larry King Live", was voted least sexy.

Oprah was declared the best interviewer receiving 40 percent of the vote followed by Ellen with 29 percent. The worst interviewer was Elizabeth Hasselbeck of "The View" with 35 percent saying so followed by Tyra Banks with 25 percent.