Ashton Kutcher trumps CNN on Twitter

Ashton Kutcher single-handedly conquered CNN.

On Twitter, anyway.

Kutcher, the actor and new-media entrepreneur, edged past the cable news network late Thursday to become the first Twitter user to have 1 million people signed up to follow his tweets. It marked a milestone in the explosive growth of the young company.

He did so by positioning himself as the ringleader of a frenetic digital circus act whose cast has swelled to include Larry King, video game maker Electronic Arts Inc., a 25-year-old Web developer from London and hundreds of thousands of online participants.

The winner had agreed to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to charity in time for World Malaria Day on April 25 -- a gift Kutcher guessed would cost $100,000.

Earlier in the week, Kutcher realized he had only about 50,000 fewer Twitter followers than the cable news network -- each had more than 800,000.

"I just found it astonishing that one person can actually have as big a voice online as what an entire media company can," Kutcher said in a video he posted online. He then vowed to "ding-dong ditch" CNN mogul Ted Turner's Atlanta home if he arrived at the milestone first.

But it was Larry King who answered the door. Via an online video of his own, the veteran talk-show host invited Kutcher to his show tonight to discuss the gauntlet the actor had thrown at Turner.

Old-media boosterism mixed with new-media zealotry was too much hype for Electronic Arts to ignore. The video game publisher offered to award Kutcher's millionth follower a free copy of every game it produced this year, plus a virtual cameo in an upcoming title.

But all the hubbub overshadowed a strange element of the story. CNN announced Wednesday that until this week, it had never actually owned the Twitter account Kutcher was challenging. Rather, James Cox, the 25-year-old Brit, had quietly been running the account -- called @CNNBrk (for breaking news) -- since January 2007.

According to KC Estenson, the head of CNN's online operation, Cox had owned and maintained the account in secret -- albeit with the permission and oversight of CNN -- for nearly two years.

"We've been managing the feed through him," said Estenson, noting the huge increase in the number of Twitter followers since the November election. "As Twitter took off and became more prominent, we decided it was time to take our engagement and make it a marriage."