Ashton versus CNN

Recently, Ashton Kutcher challenged CNN on twitter to reach over 1 million followers on Twitter. Kutcher won!! This event was the first of its kind. Kutcher did not even spend a single cent and was able to reach an amazing number of people, increase awareness for a good cause, and show that a single voice can have power. The cause was malaria awareness. Since he won, Kutcher will be donating 10,000 bet nets for the cause. Since its inception, Twitter can be considered “the ultimate ego drive” as some would call it. This could be the case if someone is simply providing self-motivating updates such as “I am still great!” But Kutcher wanted to really point out that even with an ego driven sites, egos can be channeled into good causes such as raising malaria awareness. More importantly, Kutcher wanted to show that a single voice has the power to beat a multi-media network such as CNN. It’s only been in recent times that such things are possible! Apparently, other celebs want to use the site to really reach their fans. For example, Sean Combs (P Diddy), utilizes twitter so fans can get a sense of who he really is. He claims his image is always related to the flashy lifestyle and he wants to get away from that. Thus using tweets, he can reach his fans in a new way and show his real personality. Oprah Winfrey is also a twitter user these days although I am not sure what he angle is. With all of the celeb hype, some twitter fans are fearful of what it means for twitter.First and foremost, with increased usage, can twitter handle the traffic? This remains to be seen. Also, loyal users are afraid that it will become a fad which will quickly become yesterday’s news. Loyal users want twitter to remain about the masses and not become all about following the celebs. I understand this point of view but doubt it will become simply a means to follow your favorite celeb. Honestly, shame on celebs whose intent is to monopolize twitter for their own means. But if you are doing things that promote a good cause…well…I would say tweet away! What do you think? Should celebs like Kutcher tweet? Why or why not?