A couple days ago, actor Ashton Kutcher stated his goal to beat CNN to be the first Twitter user with a million followers. He promised to punk CNN founder Ted Turner if the Internet made it happen. Yesterday, CNN anchor Larry King fired back at Kutcher saying that one man couldn’t take down a whole network.
Kutcher was still trailing CNN by tens of thousands of followers, so he upped the ante by offering his one millionth follower the popular game Guitar Hero. A pretty weak offering for a movie star. He later came back with an offer to buy 10,000 bed nets to help fight malaria in third world countries. Nice. And now, game maker Electronic Arts has now stepped into the fight with a big offer as well.
EA tweeted out earlier today that if Kutcher beats CNN to a million, it will put Kutcher’s 1 millionth follower in a future EA game. The Twitter community is bound to eat this up.
And if Kutcher has any shot, they need to. As of today, he’s still over 40,000 followers behind the cable network. And, while a lot of people aren’t mentioning it, he’s still actually behind Britney Spears, who just crossed the 900,000 follower mark. But Kutcher is growing faster. In just the past hour or so he’s added a couple thousand followers, and when word of this EA deal gets out, that should jump.
But will it be enough to jump the 40,000+ divide with CNN before it hits 1,000,000? Kutcher just better hope no real huge news breaks in the meantime. Of course, I just got off the phone with CNN — they’re working on a million Twitter follower story as well.
Update: What’s really interesting about all of this is that the @cnnbrk account that Kutcher is racing against, isn’t even maintained by CNN. Notice how there are no links to CNN stories and the account is following one person? That person is James Cox, a San Francisco man who apparently created the account, as he points out in the comments, clearly wanting his due. Well, here it is James.
Update 2: It has now been confirmed that Cox has now sold the CNN Twitter name to CNN for an undisclosed sum.
Update 3: EA has upped its ante once again. Now, it is offering Kutcher’s 1 millionth Twitter follower a copy of every game it make in 2009 on top of a role in its Sims 3 game.
Update 4: Twitter user NuMessiah has crunched the numbers and expects Kutcher to beat CNN to a million followers, and thinks that will happen in roughly 20 hours from now. He also points out that Kutcher has finally passed Britney Spears to move into second place on the follower list.
This seems like a foolish incentive. If you want to get in the game, your best bet is to wait till the number gets very close to 1M before following him. In some sense, the more people who know about the EA promotion, the slower Ashton’s growth will be, as everyone will be waiting for everyone else to follow him first.
took the words right out of my “mouth” (or fingertips)
Props to EA for jumping on a great PR opportunity.
What would be funny is if some random goof passed BOTH of them, to one million. Here’s a semi-random twitter user that has no chance (otherwise) to pass 1 million.
Follow it, and spread the word http://twitter.com/twittonary
* I am not affiliated with twittonary.
If CNN wins, they should make Kutcher do a 3-part interview Julia Allison. Talk about being punked.
more proof that this economy has further to fall. These are social indicators folks. Believe it or not.
I noticed the same about the CNN account. It hasn’t been updated in 3 days. Talk about breaking!
Kutcher is a bigger media whore than Britney. She’s a better actor though so she might have the upper hand in this race.
Right on! I’d like to add that Kutcher is a giant douche but that might be rude, or is it?
Every time I refresh @aplusk there is about 3-5 new followers.
But what happens if you follow him to track his growth and then quickly unfollow when he approaches 1M just to follow him again. Does that count?
I think CNN has got him IMO.
I guess nobody gives a flying rat’s ass that the Twitter account is in no way associated with CNN.
EVERYONE, READ THIS NOW:
http://twitter....atus/1513459868
We do, and updated, but that doesn’t stop the race — even if it is against an imaginary CNN.
Kind of amazing that CNN hasn’t purchased that Twitter account from the dude who created it yet. It doesn’t even send them traffic — there are no links to CNN stories.
Yep, crazy. But you know, big media…
they wouldn’t need to buy it, surely one complaint to Twitter would mean a handover to them.
WHAT ! 10,000 bed nets to help fight malaria in third world countries
How about helping the people of the USA , instead of trying to GAME Twitter ..
Theses people that have this STAR ( cough cough ) Power could do a hell of alot more with there $$
Like feeding those unemployed people ,, living in Tent Cities or working for the people In New Orleans
Its embarrassing , that Twitter is being turned into a GAME …..
Diseases spread. Stemming an outbreak in Africa will save American lives.
EVERYONE! FOLLOW ASHTON KUTCHER ON TWITTER!! I wanna see him punk CNN : P
This whole episode demonstrates that while celebrities and the mainstream media may be using social media they truly do not understand it. To paraphrase Tara Hunt, social media is not about quantity. It is about quality. Slowly building credibility. This Ashton Kutcher/CNN thing is a meaningless short-term attention play. I don’t follow either of them. They have nothing interesting to say.
but you follow tara hunt.. FAIL
I think Cox very effectively monetized Twitter space, given CNN now “acquired” the account. Each person’s need/usage is unique. If one prefers quantity over quality, so be it. I, on the other hand, agree with you about quality. Quantity doesn’t impress me.
If Twitter turned off their follower numbers, or if there was a massive unfollowing of some sort I bet the quality-over-quantity people would be crying in their beers. It’s easy to talk a good game about not caring about your follower numbers, but I bet all of them would be devastated if hundreds of people unfollowed them.
Is this the best TechCrunch has to write about today? Some silly Twitter follower race that no one really cares about. Did I miss when TechCrunch became a celebrity blog? When was the announcement?
Not to mention neither one of the accounts is worth following. They follow no one back, they don’t take part in any conversation and they are only on Twitter to hear how important they are.
Now move along, nothing to see here.
Just wait til it’s on CNN (soon).
http://www.cnn....ttle/index.html
More stats at: http://spreadsh...zYrNQ&hl=en
It looks that aplusk will bury cnnbrk tho …
bb4now,
PMC
@aplusk will reach 1M followers in 31 hour, @cnnbrk will reach 1M followers in 52 hours …
http://spreadsh...zYrNQ&hl=en
Interesting. Nice crunching.
So, let me get this straight… Kucher and EA’s plan is to entice me to WAIT to follow him?
Did no one think this through?
LET’s NOT forget… CNN has latched onto this one and is promoting this for their greater good, too. It was all over their network last night. So, who is playing now? A news outlet? News? Fair game in the arena of publicity…
Millions more followers means a more and already unstable Twitter …
I got this Rick Sanchez earlier
ricksanchezcnn @johncpiercy it’s just 4 fun. he’s a celebrity. i’m just a guy with a job doing news living in the burbs and driving to work everyday.
BULLSHIT RICK … your getting numbers for your show ,, off celebrity endorsements from Twitter
Although I know a lot of people don’t care about this, I think it’s hilarious. Sure there’s better things to talk about, but come on–it’s funny. Just sayin’.
This battle to get more followers got me thinking on quality vs. quantity of Twitter Followers. Is Twitter for the conversation for for the bragging rights of a million followers? I wrote a recent post that described the Slumdog Millionaire approach to followers. It is not the quantity but the quality of followers.
http://www.trac...ach-to-twitter/
Although I am not at all a fan of Kutcher I have to say that this is a brilliant publicity stunt. FTR-I have been following CNN for a very long time and have no interest in following Kutcher unless he gives me an interview.
This is all just a bit of fun. I thought that all these people might have had better things to do than play a Twitter followers game, but oh well.
Twitter (1) – Productivity (0)
Go Kutcher Go!
Ashton Kutcher should go and make out with a man. Make it very public and then start twittering about it.
This will get people to follow him.
TWITTER NEWS = ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Go Ashton Kutcher!
We Provided a Link on our homepage to get Ashton more followers.
Has anyone pointed out that 10,000 nets cost $100,000??? @ $10/pc that is a substantial gift I think…
Between Ashton and Demi what do you suppose there Net Worth is ? $100,000 is substantial ?
I dont see any MEAT at the end of this hook !
@johncpiercy So, you think they should just donate multiple millions of dollars because you’re unhappy? Sure, we’d like to see celebrities do more, but the government should be first in line to help.
The country, and much of the world, is in a sorry state, but it’s simply not wise to throw money around the way you seem to be thinking. It’s a hell of a lot easier to say “give your millions to charity” when you don’t have them.
Hey Mike ,, Im saying these Celebs want to help people . Why not look in your own backyard first .
Instead of sending a couple of Mosquito Nets to places , that could use food and water .
If thats the best that Kutcher can give , fine .
The $100,000 could be used in better places .
The real story is Twitter is NOT a Popularity contest.
Did I just see a motorcycle jump over a shark tank?
Here’s the thing. CNN has a few anchors on Twitter. Rick Sanchez is really active. Why not have Ashton take on Sanchez? Since @cnnbrk is a one-sided feed and not an engaging personality, wouldn’t this be more fair AND more accurate?
I am already following Ashton, so I guess I will follow CNN now.
Note to self – write code using twitter API to tell me when Kutcher has 999,999 followers…
This Story is really coming together real well
Ashton is getting Punk’d , by a CNN wannabe Twitter fan . Farking hillarious
Once again the truth emerges … good article Zee
http://thenextw...-cnnbkr-run-cnn
Does anyone really think this is “spontaneous”? Somebody is putting big money on this “lets pretend this is not an ad” thing.
Looks like CNN just acquired the @cnnbrk Twitter acct
That didnt take long
accounts are being added to @aplusk at an extremely regular rate of of about 1.05 +/- 0.10 per second . Perhaps follows are being throttled or perhaps someone is automating follows at a 1/second rate.
If this continues kutcher should pass a million in about 23 hours.
that’s really crazy.. i suspect if twitter by any chance motivated any of these guys
Tweet: HelmetCams – free head cam for aplush to wear on ding dong mission – resulting video and head cam goes to 1 millionth follower
Tweet: HelmetCams – free head cam for aplush to wear on ding dong mission – resulting video and head cam goes to 1 mil follower
Tweet: HelmetCams – free head cam for aplusk to wear on ding dong mission – resulting video and head cam goes to 1 mil follower
Funny stuff. How much is Twitter paying Kutcher? Zero. Zip. But Twitter will be laughing all the way to the bank while Kutcher plays ding-dong ditch. Just shows you how tech beats Hollywood every time. The ego of an actor must be fun thing to exploit. Go Twitter!
Seriously…
Helmet Camera Central throws down in the 1 mil Kutcher/CNN battle
Here’s the deal – Ashton wears a helmet cam during the ding-dong-ditch mission, records the video as proof, the resulting video and helmet cam goes to the lucky 1 mil. (Fine print: Ashton Kutcher, 1 mil Kutch-ollower, and HCC split the proceeds of selling the video of Kutcher ditch’n Ted to CNN so they can report on it … whew… 3 ways: 75%,15%,10%. Sweet.)
-chadical
Honestly, if either of them win, the entire internet fucking loses.
http://twitter.com/basementdad
Make a Twitter account and follow the Josef Fritzl account.
do it, for the future of the internet.
@cnnbrk is a pathetic twitterer. Very few tweets, the last one was about freeing the captain from the pirates three days ago. @nytimes has a much better news feed. @aplusk’s (Ashton’s) tweets are 99% junk. At least @britneyspears’ are focused on her fans. For moronic tweets check @johncmayer
All this twitter BULLSHIT just piss me off. Ok they did a good job and I am happy for their success but every day now it’s Twitter this, Twitter that… please give us all a fucking break and lets talk about things that really matters like the technology involve and their business plan rather than Kutcher and Larry King cause it’s simply ridiculous. And for the people who will just call me a hater, I want to say that I am not, being myself in the IT field, I am happy for their success but I think since pseudo celebrities started twitting (is it even a verb? maybe not yet but he will soon LOL) nobody focuses really on the business plan and that’s pretty idiotic.
now following http://twitter.com/basementdad
Twitter overload…just testing out their accounts and….
I cant follow CNNs twitter…I try to follow and it looks as though it works, but i go back to my main page and it hasnt been added.
And I cant no longer follow Ashton Kutcher – it says whoops something went wrong..try again.
CNN, Kutcher, Kutcher, CNN it does not even matter, Ellen has over 800,000 followers in just a couple weeks. She will end up with more then the both of them.