Apparently, actor Ashton Kutcher woke up today and realized he has a whole hell of a lot of Twitter followers. How many? Just shy of 850,000 now. Even more impressive to him though is that he’s near the number of Twitter followers that the No. 1 Twitter “user” CNN has (just over 900,000).
So Kutcher is throwing down the gauntlet. In a video released on YouTube today (embedded below), he’s promising to “ding dong ditch” billionaire Ted Tuner (founder of CNN) if he beats CNN to a million Twitter followers. What is a ding dong ditch you may ask? Well, it’s when you go up to a person’s house, ring their doorbell, them run away and watch as they look around to see who’s there. Yes, it’s kind of a wussy version of stuff they used to do on Kutcher’s hit MTV show “Punk’d.”
In releasing this to the Internet and tweeting it out, it’s pretty clear that Kutcher wants to be the first Twitter user with a million followers. That should be enough to put him over the top, but he may need a little more help as singer Britney Spears also remains ahead of him (though slightly with just over 870,000 followers).
You can see a full list of the top Twitter users (in terms of followers) at Twitterholic. It’s slightly behind the real-time counts, but is an accurate list.
Update: Kutcher has since clarified on Twitter that to do a proper “ding dong ditch,” he must leave a million of something on Turner’s doorstep. Let your imagination run wild.
lots of interesting news NOT picked up by TechCrunch today….and this is what we get?
what were you looking for?
Why, Perez Hilton, of course
Welcome to TechCrunch dude!! This is your first write up I am seeing. Expect to see lots of anonymous cowardly comments.
Why has Obama Abandoned Twitter?
Cheers!!
PS: Impressive changes to the commenting system. i.e the follow up email and the Twitter entry.
Well said, Idiot.
I mean OO.
Techcrunch does get its share of anonymous cowards!
There’s no question who I want to see win this battle. After reading this I went to follow CNN breaking news Twitter feed. It has more than 924K followers now, so maybe all the attention is propelling CNN even more quickly toward a million. Perhaps there is hope for humanity…
I don’t see any anons.
Are we getting pissy and gentryfied or just bored?
oh well
Twitterholic? You mean TwitterCounter right? TwitterHolic is soooo 2007…
Boring, you’re right.
I want to see Britney Spears “ding dong ditch” Ashton Kutcher.
Vote Britney!
If you guys follow me at http://twitter.com/mcastilho, we will do a “ding dong ditch” at Ashton Kutcher’s house myself. LOL
Holy shiteness. You have *98* followers!
ak is friggin loser. this get as much followers as possible is so junior high myspace behavior.
You are an idiot… seriously.. that stick that is up your ass.. please pull it out.. people need to smile right now.. and this is amusing.. you complain when TC writes about layoffs.. you complain when they write light hearted stuff..
You got what 24 followers… you were picked on a lot in school weren’t you.. he is a comedy actor… he is suppose to do fun and crazy stuff..
I have ZERO followers and I PWN your mothers because I have no date and Craigslist blows.
Deal, Cartman!
no need to complain people, you clicked the link and probably viewed the YouTube video…If Ashton beats CNN I wouldnt mind seeing him pranking Ted Turner
Agreed. You click it, you buy it!
Is going to uStream the event? I’d love to see it happen live (if it happens at all).
Just watched the video – he should definitely stream it live too!
To me this is the ‘disgusting’ part of all the sillicon valley-hollywood hype. Uninteresting stuff generating tens of thousands of views and managing to get on Techcrunch. Not mentioning the fact that AK will reach 1M follower and there will be a second article…
Unfortunately, I am here discussing it, I have already generated a view both for the video and the article and I am even posting a comment
I hate myself. Thanks Parislemon (Hello from Paris (still don’t get this parislemon
thing but “that’s a long story” I’ve been told))
Hahaha I think that would be hilarious to watch if Kutcher actually went through with it. He needs to bring back punkd. that show was hilarious and his latest projects have been mostly unsuccessful.
http://www.thew...war.com/twitter
P.S. MJ you spelled “ted tuner” in the middle of the second paragraph
Ted is tuning a Nissan today.
He should get a slot on Colbert to get him the missing 150K… and beg!
What I find most stunning, after following the link to Twitterholic, is that Fred Durst is in the Top 100!
If you hadn’t lost faith in humanity by now, it seems like a good day to start.
I find that pretty stunning myself. How the hell did he rise so fast?
Ashton Kutcher is a junior high myspacer. What did you expect? He is a comedian …
man… this guy is so worthless…
So I checked out the tweets from all of you dudes who are dissing AK. May I suggest that you look inside and ask yourselves: am I perhaps jealous of this young, fun man who pretty much has everything a guy could want: success, fame, a gorgeous, devoted wife, people who care about him as a person, youth, good looks, and… perhaps most importantly– he hasn’t lost that child-like joy that was probably beaten out of the rest of us. And you think people will take you seriously, ranting and raving on here??? Please, get some perspective. And admit the truth…
AK works harder than Britney on Twitter at least. AK 1400 tweets > Britney 110 tweets. Hard work needs to pay off sometime if his wikipedia entry is only 1/4 the depth of Britney’s.
If AK updates his “One Line Bio:” to something witty that would help push him over the top.
Nice plug for Kevin Rose!
At the end of the day this guy is smart. His “new movie” he keeps plugging with live Qik updates and coy name drops in his tweets coupled with the soon to be 1M followers has to be one of the best viral strategies. He knows exactley what he is doing and it’s smart.
He should know first of all that CNN doesn’t own the account. It’s owned by a British web developer who’s using their trademark with permission:
http://www.bigo...k-infringement/
The odds of Kutcher surpassing the owner of this bot is actually zero because the guy who owns it, James Cox, isn’t actively trying to promote it anymore. If he had to in order to fend off Kutcher, he would, making it basically impossible for Kutcher to catch him.
I thought @cnnbrk was not officially managed/sponsored by CNN and was developed by @imajes…
Yep. http://api.twit...atus/1513459868
ahh jealousy… he’s actually quite tech savvy for someone who doesn’t have to be and with money to burn Katalyst Media has it’s hands in some interesting startup projects: SaysMe.tv, Blahgirls.com etc etc…
Bruce Willis wears hats like that all the time….
Just sayin.
http://www.vari...om/wholeten.jpg
yawn.
spelling mistakes… read the whole article once before publishing.
I say more power to him, but to say CNN does not control it is not really true. CNN has to be giving this guy permission to run it for them. It’s their trademark and they can pull that permission at any time. Twitter is starting to reign in on the squating insanity. So who knows what will happen.
If he continues to post twitpics of Demi Moore in underwear, he’ll get there in no time
it’s called nigger knocking.
I get the CNN connection but this would be a lot more interesting if he pranked Ted Stevens instead. Maybe he could leave a million tubes/straws on his front doorstep.
Well from a marketing stand point, the guy now has almost 1 million fans that he can market his movies to… even if you dont like the guy… I imagine he will be able to use this to hisadvantage for sure.
I could care less what Ashton Kutcher is doing, but I’ll follow to see the punk. A million of anything on Ted Turner door step will be hilarious.
i luv aston kutcher
NEWSFLASH…
Ted Turner hasn’t hasn’t been involved with CNN (or TimeWarner their owner) for almost three years.
NEWSFLASH…
Ted Turner has nothing to do with CNN anymore. The network is owned by TimeWarner.
The one who really needs a good punkin’ is R. Murdoch!
As if we needed a bigger “L” tattooed on the guys forehead…
First, he promised to “Ding-Dong-Ditch” Ted Turner’s house if he got to a million first. Then, being the generous, social-minded human being that he is, offered to donate 1,000 net beds through Malaria No More. Now, not only will Ashton Kutcher make his donation regardless of the outcome of the race, everyone has a chance to make a difference, even those who don’t use Twitter. A T-Shirt design is available at http://www.cafe...ss.com/bekajoth and 50% of the profits from every sale will be donated to Malaria No More. If every user purchases one shirt, it will raise at least $2 Million Dollars for a great cause.
I think it’s 10,000 nets and not 1,000.
There are lots of celebrities on twitter now. CNN do have some valid news items to display wondering what does Ashton have to say and what the stupid people are reading by following him. If you want to read celebrity gossip TMZ and OMG are always there.
http://dereksho...ashton-kutcher/ Not everyone is thrilled with what Ashton is doing.
Not many really care. Can they get some CURRENT flak up here?