Ashton Kutcher on Twitter

Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account (@aplusk) is the official Twitter account of American actor and former model Ashton Kutcher. In early 2009, when Kutcher only had thousands of followers, he and wife Demi Moore, were regarded as the first well-known Twitter couple by major media publications such as Time and Los Angeles Times. @aplusk became the first Twitter account with 1 million followers in April 2009 after famously challenging CNN to a race to achieve the milestone. The account spent over 13 months as the world's most followed Twitter account. , Kutcher ranked 19th with over 11 million followers.
In his role as the most followed twitterer, Kutcher not only served as a technology ambassador by example, but also served his country on a diplomatic mission to Russia. Kutcher is widely-regarded for his technological savvy, both serving as a highly coveted technology venture capital investor and playing technology entrepreneur roles as an actor. He has also been a long-time technology spokesman. Kutcher has been widely-covered in press outlets including CNN, Time and The New York Times for his twitter activity.
History
Launched on January 16, 2009 at 01:40:06, They were a measuring stick by which Twitter was determined to have gone mainstream in early 2009. For example by the time he had 45,474 followers and she 25,831, Time featured them among the worlds top 10 celebrity twitterers, introducing the pair to the world as follows: "Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first Twitter celeb couple." That February, the couple's twitter exploits during the February 22, 2009 81st Academy Awards were covered in a New York Times story detailing behind the scenes activities that demonstrated the capabilities of Twitter.
According to Advertising Age, ABC News first broke the story of a Kutcher race to 1 million followers challenge to CNN at midday on Tuesday April 14 when he had 858,660 followers, and by Wednesday afternoon he was up to third place with 903,508 followers. CNN reported a corroborating timeline with details that at some point on Wednesday Kutcher had 896,947 followers, which was the 3rd-most followers, (behind Britney Spears, , who had 905,640 followers, CNN's breaking news, @cnnbrk, was followed by 937,787). At the time the CNN breaking news Twitter account was three years old. As Kutcher and CNN approached 1 million followers, the media became attentive as the lead changed hands back and forth with CNN taking a 991,103-990,983 lead at 11:59 PM on Thursday April 16. Kutcher surpassed 1 million 30 minutes before CNN, which necessitated that he fulfill a promise to prank Ted Turner, the founder of CNN. In another part of the bet, both Kutcher and CNN delivered mosquito bed nets to help stop the spread of malaria. Upon becoming aware of the media event, Oprah Winfrey made her first tweet and promised to donate thousands of malaria bed nets. Ryan Seacrest also contributed to the effort. A sample of Kutcher's tweets presented by Time magazine showed that he tweets directly over the web, through TweetDeck as well as through Tweetie. According to Time it was the intra-couple twittering with his wife and not the publicity surrounding his challenge that lured his followership.
On May 23, 2010, When Spears passed Kutcher both were closing in on 5 million followers. May 24, reports showed Spears with a 4,950,344-4,941,340 lead according to The Huffington Post. Another website reported a slightly smaller lead 4,950,699-4,944,227. On March 2, 2011, Kutcher's account was hacked while attending a technology conference. The hacker hijacked the account using Firesheep over an unsecured Wi-Fi connection to post two tweets. Within two weeks, Twitter began providing an encrypted connection option. In May 2011, when he was selected to replace Charlie Sheen on the television show Two and a Half Men Kutcher riddled his twitter following with a message to lead them to the number 2.5: "What's the square root of 6.25?"
The management of his account became newsworthy when he made an errant tweet to his 8 million-plus followers about the firing of Joe Paterno in November 2011, leading to his suspension of tweeting activity. The Los Angeles Times reported that his deleted tweet stated "How do you fire Jo Pa? #insult #noclass as a hawkeye fan I find it in poor taste", but Kutcher had only seen a television headline that Paterno had been fired. Since he had no explanation, he thought the firing was age-related and showed a lack of class and loyalty. However, when he realized that the firing was related to the Penn State sex abuse scandal, he fully recanted his initial statement and noted that "As an advocate in the fight against child sexual exploitation, I could not be more remorseful for all involved in the Penn St. case." Time reported that rather a headline, Kutcher had just seen the tail end of the Paterno story. He subsequently turned his account over to a production company. Following the decision to turn over his account, he was commonly referred to in the press as a "Twitter Quitter". At about the same time as the Kutcher-Paterno scandal, Moore announced she was leaving Kutcher.
After Kutcher became estranged from his wife, Demi Moore, his Foursquare and linked Twitter accounts were hacked in January 2012 with postings detailing fabricated statements about his relationship with his new significant other, Lorene Scafaria. Although the hacked postings were deleted, they were posted on Celebrity Tweet. By hacking both the Four Square and Twitter account the hacker revealed both Scafaria's and his own address. For some people, including Ashton Kutcher, Twitter was their first introduction to Justin Bieber; eventually, Bieber and Kutcher worked together on pranks for Bieber's role as a replacement for Kutcher on Punk'd.
Kutcher and technology
As of April 2012, Kutcher had 10 million plus twitter followers, 12 million plus Facebook fans, and a strong reputation for technological savvy due to his venture capital investments in startups such as Foursquare, Airbnb, Zaarly, Chegg, Flipboard, and Skype. While he was the world's most popular twitter user by follower count, he served the United States on a diplomatic mission to Russia. In May 2011, Kutcher released his own Twitter app for desktop computer users named A.Plus. He also advises Twitter app investor UberMedia. As an actor, Kutcher plays technology entrepreneur characters Walden Schmidt on Two and a Half Men and Steve Jobs in Jobs. Kutcher has been the spokesman for the Nikon Coolpix series of digital cameras since March 2008, appearing in print, online and television advertisements.

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