I believe the race to the 1-M twitter followers was promoted as a race similar to events such as the race to be the first to the South Pole or the race for being the most widely used Operating System (OS; mainly Windows vs Linux).

But events such exploration and development (and promoting) an OS require much consideration of reality, thought and work spread across years. And in such cases, the “race” directly involves the efforts of the “competitors”.

A Twitterer gains followers based largely on prior work. In the early days of Hollywood, fans used to follow stars by way of publicity releases from studios that had the stars under contract; and in recent times, there have been gossip-magazines and fan-websites. Today, fans can follow their idols on Twitter. In the case of a business entity, it gains twitter followers based on what it has offered to its customers in the past.

A Twitterer’s gaining of followers is largely the establishment of a new mode of communication toward his existing base of followers.

So what does it take to reach 1M followers? It requires that Twitter publicize its values — that Twitter garner the attention of several millions of people. Then if a particular twitterer already has an established base of followers, it requires that he communicate the specific value that Twitter would afford them in their role as his fans.

Almost all of Kucher’s fans are likely to already be active on the internet because their pursuit of him is very greatly enhanced by being on the internet! People who watch CNN get what they want from CNN primarily via TV — and so are unlikely to be comfortable at a computer. The interest of Kucher’s fans require them to be on the internet already; the interest of CNN’s fans does not require them to be on the internet already. In fact, people who are on the internet might actually be those who do not watch CNN or any other TV. So it is easier for Kucher to establish this new Twitter connection toward his followers.

What was being promoted is not how Kucher became the actor that he is today or how CNN became the business that it is today — not the actions that lead to the creation of followers.

What was on display was each entity’s attempts to establish the new twitter-connection with their respective followers (and how these efforts were panning out in real time). And yes, it could be somewhat interesting to glance at what each was doing and how the respective outcomes were panning out.

What I would object to is the characterization of the 1M race as being similar to endeavors such as those mentioned earlier (South Pole, OS) — primarily because of the comparative range of time involved. I also do not agree with who people are saying has the advantage (“David/Goliath”) in the 1-M race: because of the respective prior presence of their followers on the internet, I think it is Kucher who is the “big guy with a head start” and CNN that is the “coming from behind little guy”.

–Hs4Mm

Are you sure its jack nicholson btw? Because I am not going to send you a handbag for a lookalike