Even though it wasn’t really that long ago the recent race between Aston Kutcher and CNN for the first million followers has pretty much passed on to being nothing more than Twitter lore now. From Twitter’s point of view though it could do with as many of those kind of stories as possible. That is because Twitter needs to keep itself out there in front of the mainstream folks.

They need the Oprah’s and Ellen’s joining and pushing their fans to join. For Twitter numbers are their lifeblood and the only thing that adds any value to the company. For the users though one has to really wonder what value all these famous names are really adding to the service.

Whether or not Twitter likes to admit it or not it is still part of the larger Web ecosphere and because of that it still needs to rely on the link economy that drives other things like blogs and makes them popular, and in some cases profitable. The link economy is an integral part of the Web. It is in many ways the lifeblood that keeps the Web growing.

As much as Twitter might like the press that people like Kutcher, Oprah, and other ‘famous’ people bring to the service does their link juice have the same traffic promotion as people who have worked to build up real communities on Twitter?

This was a question that Chris Pirillo asked in a post yesterday and the answer may surprise you

You know we had to discuss Twitter, and the whole Ashton Kutcher trying to get to one million. He didn’t send as much flow as I thought he would have with as many followers as he has. Ashton linked to a video of mine, and I was shocked to find out that I didn’t get much flowback from that. I see people who have a large amount of followers, but have no flow like that. They don’t get clicks, or re-tweets. But with our community, they’re just crazy about sending things out, clicking on links I share, and re-tweeting things they find impressive or interesting.

Now there isn’t anyone out there in the tech ecosphere who works harder at community building than Chris. He is always trying new and interesting things which only seems to increase the community that has developed around him. So if he finds that these so-called famous people aren’t adding anything of real value to his community I would suggest that this could pretty well apply to all of us.

Famous people aren’t going to make your community any better than what it is and time spent trying to curry their attention would be better spent on building what you already. As Chris says

This goes to show that it’s not about the number of followers you have. It has to do with your gravitational pull, so to speak. It has to do with how much weight you pull. I work very hard to make sure that what I say has relevance (for the most part), and that I post something that is valid and interesting that will add value to my Twitter stream… and to my follower’s streams, as well.

Consider it this way – you are already famous. You are famous to the people who make up your community so make them feel like their efforts are worth something. Let them know they are important to you. don’t worry about the famous people they’ll fade away when this stuff isn’t fun any more but your community will always be there.

What value do famous names bring to Twitter? is a post from: The Inquisitr

So what’s the big news these days?

The recession starting to see an upswing in China?

North Korea reactivating its nuclear program?

The Obama clan get a new hypo-allergenic puppy?

No. It’s all about some actor named Ashton Kutcher, whose only real claim to fame at this point is being married to Demi Moore, looking to reach 1 million followers on Twitter before the CNN news bot does. Yes folks in an effort to finally prove how totally useless Twitter can be we have Larry King accepting the challenge on behalf of CNN that the new organization will reach that magical number before Kutcher does.

Robert Scoble once said it isn’t the number of people of following you on Twitter that is important but rather the number of people you are following. Well if we look at those numbers in regards to the two combatants in the PR slugfest of the century we can see they are both losers. Currently CNN while ahead in the follower’s number game is lagging behind Kutcher, which isn’t say much either.

Kutcher is following: 70 people

CNN is following 6 people

Where it can make sense for CNN to have as any followers as it does, because it is a news broadcaster after all, Kutcher’s obsession with reaching that earth shattering milestone of 1 million is pointless and stupid. It also shows how as much as the folks in social media would like everyone to believe that it is all about the conversation the real point of Twitter is to prove how little you value your friendships. After all how could you even come close to being able to give a rational explanation about any value of having a million people following you.

You can’t, and in the process you prove to the world just how silly this Twitter thing can be – which is too bad because Twitter could be much more than this. Also an interesting little side bit to this. Until today CNN didn’t even own the CNN profile on Twitter but once they saw the obvious PR value of it they hauled out the checkbook and bought it up from one Jamie Cox of San Francisco.

So on one hand we have senility encroaching Larry King issuing a YouTube video talking about how he’ll take on Kutcher on his Twitter thing – does Larry even know what Twitter is? On the other hand we have doucebag Kutcher bribing the Twitter masses with the help of game maker EA as well as emotionally blackmailing us with promises of buying 10,000 bed nets to help fight malaria.

And why?

Other than for some perverse ego boost on Kutcher behalf and momentary PR of how cool they are on CNN’s behalf this bullshit serves no other purpose than a momentary distraction for the Twitter masses.

Isn’t our use of technology bloody wonderful.

Now about that recession?

So what do you do with 1 million followers? is a post from: The Inquisitr