Apr 17 2009
Kutcher Tweets His Way to Online “Feat”
The big entertainment news today comes from actor Ashton Kutcher’s reaching 1 million followers on the social networking site, Twitter. Yes, that is the big news.
For days, the media and has hyped the race between Mr. Demi Moore and CNN. When all was said and done, Kutcher hit the mark late last night, becoming the first registered Twitter-er (?) to boast 1 million followers.
For those Twitter-ignorant folk out there, the premise is rather basic- in 140 words or less, members post updates on what they’re doing, thinking, contemplating, whatever musings they wish. More limited than Facebook and lacking the flash and multi-media barrage that MySpace offers, somehow Twitter has found a niche as the third-most-popular social networking site of the moment, behind No. 1 Facebook (probably the best site for finding old classmates and people with whom you’ve lost touch) and No. 2 MySpace. (Oprah Winfrey even posted her first “tweet” on her talk show today.)
On the surface, this Kutcher-CNN contest looked ridiculous, with Kutcher virtually campaigning all week after discovering his followers count rivaled that of the cable news channel. So, now he has 1 million followers- what does it give him, other than bragging rights to Mr. TwitPopular? It may be a cool way to communicate with fans, keep them up to date on goings-on- but the idea of having 1 million followers is just as silly as having 1 million “friends” on MySpace.
Then again, why set a limit, when even having 500 or more “friends” on any social networking site borders on excessive- as if we intimately know most of the people on our friends list. But, that’s not what it’s about- it’s either used as a networking tool (which isnt’ such a bad idea) or, “Oohh, look how many ‘friends’ he has, let me get him on my list, too, I wanna have as many friends as I can!” Uh huh- may as well be back in high school if we’re looking at it from that point of view.
That’s not to say Twitter use yields no meaningful impact. Kutcher pledged to buy 10,000 mosquito nets if he got to 1 million followers before any other person or entity- a promise he intends to honor by writing a $100,000 check to the Malaria No More Fund.
Maybe Kutcher’s generosity will signal a trend of positive and meaningful happenings resulting from social networking site usage. As trivial as Twitter may be, hopefully the site stays in the headlines for reasons like the followers contest and charity, and not for the notorious online-communicators-meeting-in-person disasters that have plagued sites like MySpace and Facebook.
So be careful, have at it and tweet away.
