Dude Where's My Million?

Image by joedawson via Flickr

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) today became the first person on Twitter to reach 1,000,000 followers. In doing so he beat CNN (@CNNbrk) with about 2000 followers. The CNN feed reached the mark 30 minutes later to conclude an exciting week for social media.

Many sources feel that microblogging service Twitter has now crossed over into the mainstream. What is certain is that Twitter is hugely popular and the actor is one of several influential celebrities contributing to the service. Britney Spears is another high profile figure close to breaking through the million mark and should achieve that shortly.

For reaching the milestone Ashton Kutcher is donating 10,000 mosquito nets worth $100,000 to Malaria No More. Electronic Arts will make the millionth follower a star in its upcoming video game The Sims 3 and give a free copy of every single game they make in 2009. Ashton Kutcher also stated that he would ding dong ditch (knock down ginger) Ted Turners house so it should be only a matter of time before that appears online!

The service appeared to be experiencing issues leading up to the breakthrough as follower counts were displayed much higher.

Until earlier this week @CNNbrk was run by John Cox, but CNN “acquired” the Twitter account for an unknown amount. According to Twitter rules you aren’t allowed to sell your Twitter account ~ Inquisitr

Ashton Kutcher tweeted the following message after breaking the milestone -



CNN acknowledged Ashton Kutcher reaching the contested follower total with the below tweet -


Ironically, Ashton Kutcher’s public profile on Facebook crossed the million mark a few hours earlier and growing by an incredible 600,000 fans in the last 3 days. What this brings into question is how much longer the talent will need its mainstream middleman? On Friday morning Ashton will appear on Oprah, who also has a Twitter account @oprah and will Tweet on live TV, reaching millions of US households.

With Google synonymous with ‘Search', Tweeting is fast becoming the associated term for conversation on the Internet. Would you prefer to search or instead find what's happening?

What's next for Kutcher? Personally I would like to see him contribute to Friendfeed and if he can have a similar impact on the lifestreaming service.

Million subscribers Ashton?!

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