Thursday, April 16, 2009

CNN Buys Twitter Account

A great story here that my mate Gav passed on to me.

Yesterday (Wednesday) CNN boasted it's Twitter followers by nearly a million with the acquisition of the '@cnnbrk' Twitter account. The account, currently the largest on Twitter with over 947,000 followers, was previously maintained by James Cox.

Unfortunately there are no financial details available regarding the acquisition but rumours are flying around the net that it may have exceeded 6 figures. More interesting then what the amount is, however, is that there was an amount at all, and it hasn't been denied. Twitter currently prohibit the selling of Twitter accounts and CNN and James Cox have in effect broken those rules. Twitter would be completely within their rights to close the account immediately.

What has also come out of this move is perhaps even more interesting. Ashton Kutcher, who is currently the second most follwed person on Twitter with 917,000 followers, has made a public challenge to CNN, as to who can get to 1 million followers first. Kutcher has agreed to donate 10,000 mosquito bed nets to charity for World Malaria Day if he is first to the 1 million followers.

“I found it astonishing that one person can actually have as big of a voice online as what an entire media company can on Twitter,” Kutcher said. “And so I just thought that was just kind of an amazing comment on the state of our media, and I said that, if I beat CNN to 1 million viewers, then I would ding-dong ditch Ted Turner–because I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”

CNN have since accepted Kutcher’s challenge.

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