Ashton Kutcher becomes first on Twitter to 1 million followers

American actor Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) became the first Twitter user to reach 1,000,000 followers, beating out CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) and Britney Spears (@britneyspears) to the mark in a race closely watched by the Twitterverse in recent days.

The race to one million had been monitored by hundreds of blogs and news outlets, including TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CNN, and ABC News.

Kutcher will celebrate the milestone live on the Oprah Winfrey Show on Friday. He has said that Oprah will send out her first ever tweet during the broadcast using the Twitter name @Oprah.

Kutcher passed CNN for the first time Thursday before CNN regained the lead after an on-air shout-out by personality Anderson Cooper. But Kutcher fired back with this tweet and his own broadcast via UStream.TV:

1. 
   aplusk I'm am live on ustream now if CNN is gonna fight it out on tv I'll fight it out on the web http://ustream.tv/ashton 17 Apr 2009 from web

Here's a screenshot from the UStream broadcast of Kutcher watching with wife Demi Moore when he had reached 995,000 followers.



The Twitterverse celebrated the milestone.

1. 
   berryanarchy @aplusk This is kinda exciting and it's good to see a celeb be a real person on webcam too 17 Apr 2009 from web
2. 
   petervizel Hey @aplusk CONGRATULATIONS!! You DID IT!! You ARE the MAN on the MOON!!!! (Ashton Kutcher Live > http://bit.ly/xEu6c) 17 Apr 2009 from web
3. 
   PaulJGorzkowski @MCHammer @kingsthings @aplusk CNN didnt stand a chance. Congrats Ashton! 17 Apr 2009 from web in reply to MCHammer
4. 
   justicenathan Hey @aplusk goosebump time! twitter revolutionised! (Ashton Kutcher Live > http://bit.ly/xEu6c) 17 Apr 2009 from web
5. 
   johnhall702 Hey @aplusk CONGRATS!!! (Ashton Kutcher Live > http://bit.ly/xEu6c) 17 Apr 2009 from web

Ashton Kutcher becomes first on Twitter to 1 million followers