Ashton Kutcher CHEATED.

Ashton Kutcher had a lot of help getting to 1 million Twitter followers thanks to Lamar Outdoor advertising.

Active Rain's Jeff Turner demonstrated that cheating is possible on Twitter. It's not hard to set up dummy accounts and his recent blog post shows you how he did it. 

I don't think Ashton has the time nor does he want the free (bad) press if someone were to reveal if Ashton created fake accounts just to land the title of being the first to hit 1 million followers or just to piss off CNN. Ted Turner's former news agency seemed quite miffed that someone other than CNN manage to get to the 1 million mark.  I think Ashton is an avid micro-blogger and did nothing but take advantage of some TV plugs he did and help from Lamar Billboard.

The Bartman thinks if you or I had Lamar rolling a message across 1,100 plus bill boards across the country for us, anyone one could have landed 1 million followers on Twitter.  How about that as a great way to help you sell all of your listing inventory inside of a week!

Take a look at the billboard image below. I rest my case. 

The extra marketing Ashton received from Lamar is the BIG reason why Ashon Kutcher beat CNN to the 1 million mark. Ashton wasn't charged for the service, either. The messages were rolled out Pro-Bono.  On a side note, if Lamar would roll out a digital message for each one of us on ActiveRain, on rotation of course, we might all be enjoying a bit more business as a result of the increased attention. Buyers Market?  Now THAT's CHANGE I can BELIEVE In!  Hahahahahahaha. 

Back to reality -- Oprah is going to be making an announcement to plug her Twitter account, so my guess is Oprah will be closing fast on reaching 1 million followers for her causes, too.

There have been Chirps from Ashton and Oprah to help raise donations to help stem the rising epidemic of Malaria in Africa. So it's all good. 

- bart