About 2 a.m. East Coast time, Ashton Kutcher declared victory in attracting one million followers on Twitter. For what it’s worth—is it worth something?—CNN piggyback publicity team conceded victory, but would reach a million itself sometime in the wee morning hours.
About 7:30 last night, just about the time the Twitter-battle was being hyped on entertainment news, bookies reached out to my inbox to inform me the odds favored CNN. Odds were even on Kutcher, long on Britney.
“Clearly the world wants to know if Ashton Kutcher will be able to continue his furious rise towards top tweeter, if media giant CNN will retain its firm grip on the number one spot, or if a dark horse emerge at the last minute and take the world by surprise,” said Mickey Richardson, CEO of Bookmaker.com
Ashton live streamed the “historic” event at Ustream.
But the really interesting part of this is the waiting to see what happens with Oprah Winfrey’s account. Before single tweet was made this morning, she had amassed 72,000 followers. Kutcher tweeted he was about to introduce her to Twitter on the show this morning and just a few minutes ago, Oprah greeted the Twitter audience before tweeting to her assistant to order her a reuben sandwich.
Um, seriously? What an odd world. It would almost be Alexandergrahambellish if not so, well, surreal. Just wait till the show airs. Bet Oprah blows way past a million followers and Twitter itself is flooded with new Oprahbot members.
It all does make one wonder how much a Twitter account is worth. When Andrew Baron briefly put up hisTwitter account for auction last year, 1,700 followers seemed like a huge Twitter crowd, and the going rate appeared to be a dollar a follower. It’s not clear how much the Twitter-squatter for CNN’s account received for his partnership, but it does make one wonder what the going rate today is.
