I joined Twitter almost two years ago, used it for about 4 months and took a break for 5 months until I was able to link up my Twitter updates to update my Facebook status. Since then I’ve been hearing about impact of Twitter like getting a fellow Cal bear out of foreign prison and increasingly more about it in the news and on TV as a “super cool new thing”.

I haven’t been keeping up with my online news feeds lately so I only recently learned about Ashton Kutcher challenging and racing CNN to the 1 million Twitter followers mark… actually I saw it on Oprah! The interview:

Ashton comments on the far reaching possibilities and power of The Social Web, but the blogosphere, web 2.0 companies, and academia have known this for a long time (remember the viral Saturday Night Live clip on Youtube?):

In some ways it’s a commentary on the state of media. I believe that we’re at a place now with social media where one person’s voice can be as powerful as an entire news network, an entire media network. That is the power of the social web. You, through your own stream, can actually have a voice that’s as loud as a media network. You can create your content through a collaborative effort, you can edit your content, you can broadcast your content, and you can consume your content all in one place. And I thought it was kind of almost like an uprising of the Internet in a way.
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You can really rally people around different causes… There are giant things that we can do through this platform at 140 characters at a time.

Though I have to disagree with Gayle King who said during the interview:

When you think about it, it really is astounding Ashton, that one guy can really take on a conglomerate and win. It’s really the democratization of the media. I think you’ve changed the game of how people now get their information.

But he didn’t change the game, Twitter and other social web companies yes, but not one person, unless you’re talking about the founders and the employees of those companies.

This is something he also recognizes:

The game was already changing. I was just allowed to be a part of it. If you look at what Kevin Rose has built at digg.com, he’s actually built a place where the people decide what’s going to be the top headline story of the day by digging up stories that are out there… based on what they want to see.

But I don’t think we’re quite there yet, or rather it wasn’t solid proof.

Ashton is a celebrity with a highly influential network of other celebrities and people. It would be interesting to see if a regular Joe Schmoe would be able to do the same in starting out with a lower level of influence. Even if Joe Schmoe were friends with a celebrity, would the network effect have enough of the same influence to recruit P.Diddy and Lil’ Kim to such a cause as Ashton did?

And the proof can’t just be about getting followers, but it needs to be about how many actually stay and continue receiving his content; the college Facebook apps class looked at the importance of metrics to determine engagement, not simply how many users installed the Facebook apps in question. When we’re talking about actual effect, we need to be looking at what happens after the stint is over. How many of the people who were recruited to follow Ashton on Twitter will continue to engage with the content either passively or actively?

For example, last year, 94.4% of blogs were inactive and hadn’t been updated in 4 months. How many of Ashton’s followers will fall into the same fate and abandon their Twitter connection? How many will maintain it?

Also, what sets Ashton’s Twitter feed apart from CNN’s feed is that CNN is all informational and news while Ashton’s is also personal and so the draw to his also involves the voyeuristic tendencies of others. The Facebook class covered this during a first day discussion of what makes Facebook so persuasive. I’ve also noticed how Facebook status updates that are more personal and about what people are doing garner more comments and responses than statuses that are more informational.

Despite those issues, what Ashton has done really well in his CNN Twitter challenge is demonstrating the broadcasting potential to reach a crazy number of people and the persuasive empowering tools anyone has at their disposal. (Demi Moore is also broadcasting videos via qik.com). The potential and implications are huge, no doubt.

And he’s increased awareness about new (well, -ish for the early adopters) technology. I bet Twitter is loving the traffic and new users, especially great for more VC funding. In fact, the “Oprah Effect” brought Twitter 43% traffic since the Ashton interview aired which also happened to be the same show Oprah started tweeting.

As for me, it’s a sign I need to get back to the Social Web. I’m not old skool, I swear… I just posted this blog entry!

More info:
Ashton’s Twitter page
Ashton’s challenge to CNN
Larry King gets into it, too
Update from Ashton Kutcher about Twitter challenge
Ashton’s moment of truth