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Ashton Kutcher wins Twitter battle with CNN, but Oprah challenges
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by Barbara Mathieson | April 18, 2009 at 04:32 am
457 views | 24 Recommendations | 5 comments
By Jake Coyle • Associated Press • April 17, 2009
NEW YORK — For now, Ashton Kutcher is the king of Twitter. But there is a new challenger — Oprah. Kutcher triumphed over CNN in their much ballyhooed race to be the first to reach a million followers on the microblogging Web site. Kutcher surpassed that benchmark in the early morning hours Friday, narrowly edging out the breaking news feed from the Time Warner Inc.-owned network. Even Nashville commuters were made aware of the campaign as at least one electronic billboard promoted it.
Speaking in a live webcast early Friday, Kutcher took the tone of a revolutionary.
"We have shown the world that the new wave is here," Kutcher said on ustream.tv shortly after passing the million mark. "It is present and it is ready to explode. You guys are all of it because I can't follow me."
Kutcher had long trailed CNN, but he staged a rally in recent days that captured the attention of the Web. The million mark race was taken by many as a symbol of huge upswing of Twitter's popularity.
In recent months, the site has increased exponentially in visitors. The search engine Yahoo said Friday that searches for Twitter over the past four months increased more than 5,559 percent over the same time last year.
The site allows users to type "tweets" of 140 characters or less on their computers or cell phones, which others "follow" on Twitter like a stock ticker.
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Truemorist
Vancouver, Canada
Recommendations (24)
Fred Miller
Friendswood, Texas, United States
JeffHuang
Berkeley, California, United States
ricknight
Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 05:17 on April 18th, 2009
"And why is this important or news?"
it is important to the degree that individuals decide to read about it, view it, hear it and to then pass it on through some media - which of course, is the message.
at 09:45 on April 18th, 2009
I was incredibly shocked to see all of the coverage Oprah and Ashton got for "twittering." Then again, maybe I'm not all that surprised in our society.
Truemor has a great piece on this whole PR stunt. http://my.nowpublic.com/culture/ashton-kutcher-punks-twitter-giant-million-follower-pr-stunt
at 19:14 on April 18th, 2009
That's right, Jeff. Be 'incredibly shocked' but 'not all that surprised'.
The coverage and ratings that Oprah will garner will soon hit many newsworthy writers......
at 12:52 on April 18th, 2009
So why is Kutcher's Twitter act such a perfectly crafted PR stunt?
--a good cause was tied in to bring a sense of purpose to his campaign -- he went with the classic mosquito nets/ malaria concept, but does not Kutcher have enough money to buy and donate a couple of life-saving nets without all this Twitter buzz? Or is this the pinnacle of new age hypocrisy?
--getting the big guys to compete against you: if you can get Larry King to play along, you are bound to attract people's attention. After all, CNN benefits from this PR symbiosis too
--associating yourself with the new age, innovative technology/philosophy. Surely Kutchner was not the one who invented Twitter, but in the best traditions of publicity stunts he is speaking like he is the mastermind genius behind the new craze. Other celebs before him, like Lance Armstrong and Brittney Spears, became popular on Twitter well before Kutcher, but none of them conceived the idea of blowing their digital fame completely out of proportions the way Kutcher did it...But, Kutcher, you were not the first to realize the fact that the new media will revolutionize the way in which news is delivered. In fact, renowned journalists and new media entrepreneurs have been talking about it for years, of course none of them dared to call on the CNN in a digital attention battle