OK It is official… The “Oprahfication” of Twitter has become a reality. Today Oprah had Twitter co-founder EV on the show as well as Ashton Kutchner (@aplusk) while Oprah did her first tweet… which as a funny side note was all in CAPS

Why does this matter if celebrities use twitter and tweet? It is only mildly interesting to follow celebrities from my perspective. However we happen to live in a celebrity obsessed culture where people want a peek behind the velvet rope and a peek into the “lifestyles of the rich and famous”… Remember that show? The proof here is that Oprah set a Twitter Follower Velocity Record: 225,000 followers in 13 hours. At this rate she will kick Ashton Kutchner’s butt in the number of twitter followers in under a few days.

The big news story is not that Oprah is on twitter. The BIG news is that Oprah has huge Gravitational pull in social networks. She has the ability to get soccer moms that are technophobes to try new stuff and push their boundaries. This is great news as twitter is a new communication channel and the value of the eco-system and network increases as more people use it.

Twitter can be a broadcast distribution channel and that is exactly Oprah’s use case. It works for her and celebs.

Here is the video with Oprah and Gal Pals tweeting it up and chatting with Ashton Kutchner

Twitter is moving even more mainstream as we see it included in commercials.The mention of Twitter in this recent Sprint Advertisement is mildly brilliant and quite funny if you happen to use Twitter “233K people just twittered on twitter….. and 26% of you have no idea what that means”. The joke here is that people that are on Twitter get it and it is like being part of the hip group.

Hat Tip to the people at Sprint for this one. Well Done.

Twitter is announcing a new hand held device that appears to be like a full featured twitter interaction device. Word on the street is that the Twitter Wingman will be released in 3 months to the general public. Tentatively named the Twitter Wingman; it is roughly the size of a large page device, it has enhanced features such as:
** Ability to group people (big value there)
** Built in 5 Meg camera with a flash
** A $30 - 40 price tag with a two-year contract on Boost Mobile
** Integrated GPS with real time maps that allow you to locate other Wingmen in the area.
** Bluetooth data transfers between Wingmen.
** Dedicated hot keys for sending direct tweets, picking up new followers, and retweeting.

Check out more details in this great video from the team at WIRED.

While all of this could prove promising… I have to ask myself… “Do I really need to carry another device? Couldn’t we just build most of this functionality right into an iphone app?” This clearly does have a push to drive more acceptance on the low end based upon the price point. Let’s not forget that once you have a device like this it could become a very solid channel to drive geo specific & relevant advertising through.

Although this is an April fools joke. It is not too nutty to become something that just might work.