Kutcher Beats CNN to 1 million on Twitter pt. 2

That Ashton Kutcher beat CNN to 1 million followers on Twitter shows promise for the medium and poses a challenge to any social platform out there to rise to.  Now we just need a normal guy to do this.  This is a follow-up to my earlier article on the subject that you can find here.

It’s interesting to note that on Facebook, the four most followed accounts are large institutions, organizations, or things (Barack Obama, Coca-Cola, Nutella, Pizza)[1. Statistics per this article, which is admittedly almost a month old, but nevertheless, I feel it's still largely representative of the contrasts between Twitter and Facebook, and goes a long way in showing just where Twitter diverges from Facebook as an arena for individuals instead of entities].  Top Facebook accounts also include Twilight[2. twice!] – a vampire romance novel, chocolate, and Bob Marley.  Of course, the list continues with some celebrities, but in comparison to Twitter, the individual to entity ratio is vastly skewed toward larger entities.  Not to mention that top Facebook accounts read like items you might find in a teen magazine.

Conversely, top Twitter accounts include Wil Wheaton, Felicia Day, and Stephen Fry (though admittedly, in the list I’m currently referencing, CNN and Barack Obama are at the top, followed by Britney Spears and later Ashton Kutcher).  But, by and large, there are very few “groups” that are largely followed on Twitter compared to Facebook, and one could assume, any other popular social platform currently out there.  Twitter is a social platform dominated by individuals that allows for deeper conversation between those people.

How it makes this possible still eludes me, but I have a feeling it has something to do with the more genuine content Twitter seems to tease out of people, the built-in interface that allows for one-way conversations and relationships, as well as extensibility of third party interface apps (something Facebook fails at completely) that allow you to filter content you want to read while still monitoring all the rest of the unfiltered material whenever you want.

So what does Kutcher’s win over CNN have to do with any of this?  For one, it confirms something we already knew: Twitter is for individuals more than it is for larger organizations.  But secondly, and most importantly, I think it shows that Twitter has tapped into some interesting formula that allows for more (seemingly) concrete relationships between accounts (users) than ever before.  This includes those who follow celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Kevin Nealon, or even, as I found out after shooting a tweet @NeilDiamond, Neil Diamond[3. He loved working on the set of Saving Silverman and, per a question from my friend @TylerJ, was eating "steak, mashed potatoes, asparagus, NY cheesecake, cappuccino" the day he took questions.  Yes, the real Neil Diamond!].  Yes, the real Neil Diamond.

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