Oprah loves Twitter.

Better than an endorsement from the Pope, Oprah will help (as if it needed it) it to grow even more. For instance,according to Compete, a Web analytics firm, Twitter had 14 million unique visitors in March, up from 8 million in February.

According to Oprah's Web site, she has just joined Twitter. She has ben silent up to now, but more than 30,000 followers have already signed up to follow her every 140-character thought, and the number is growing.

The rumor: she would write her first tweet on Friday, when she is dedicating her show to Twitter. (It airs at 4 p.m. Eastern time — check your local listings here for details on viewing the show in your area.)

Ashton Kutcher will be on the guestlist. He is one of Twitter's most active celebrity twitterers and will likely talk about his race with CNN to be the first to get a million followers. I took side for CNN which I am following.

Evan Williams, Twitter's chief executive, could be on the show, too. He mysteriously twittered this message this morning: "Tomorrow (Friday) just became a very big day.

(via NYT)

(update 17/04/09) Twitter was about to explode during the show which was not live, but taped at 11:00 AM ET. Just check the amount of tweets including Oprah in it here.

Through Webguild's Twitter feed, I found this interesting comment about this celebrities thing invading Twitter.

Natania Johnson on SearchEngineWatch wrote this:

"I don't mind celebrities using Twitter. But when I hear things like Oprah crowning Ashton Kutcher the "King" of Twitter, I think - why in the world does Oprah think she's the one who should make a proclamation?

...But with Twitter, the celebrities practically came from out of nowhere and decided they were the most awesome thing to come to Twitter since, well, the millions of users who were already there.

I guess it's just that I've watched people in a variety of niches really advance Twitter, and then Oprah comes along riding coattails and interviewing celebrities.

Don't get me wrong, I love that Twitter is getting so much attention. For those of you who are trying to market your business via Twitter, having Oprah's fans on there certainly helps.

But for those of us geeks who've been on Twitter for a while, this just feels like the captain of the cheerleading squad trying to take over the yearbook. Or the chess club."