The TWITTER Saga: Ashton & Demi

So…….it all started when we ran into Ashton & Demi at the SUNDANCE Film Festival in January – Ashton was excited to tell us about his new found love – recording his life and adventures for the………you guessed it -- the new micro-blogging site TWITTER. Now it appears that Ashton -- Twitter's top tweeter -- warned he may pull the plug on his tweeting if TWITTER execs partner with a reality TV show. And just when things had gotten really interesting........over the holiday weekend Demi Moore posted a re-Tweet (a link to a post someone else made) of a photo of herself in a dentist chair missing a tooth.

We absolutely LOVE Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. The Hollywood Bureau has had a front row seat the last six months where we have been privileged to watch them become the matriarch and patriarch of America’s newest obsession-of-the moment -- TWITTER. These two A-list celebrities have embraced this new phenomenon in a major way proving the power of social networks in today’s media landscape.

And what is TWITTER for you that have been living under a rock: basically in a 140-characters or less users are prompted to communicate “tweet” and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?”

Back at SUNDANCE Ashton told us where we could watch the videos and then he was off..... flying from SUNDANCE to Washington D.C. where he and Demi were to attend the inauguration. We have to admit we have become a little obsessed. We have been very voyeuristic in watching Ashton's videos religiously for months now.


Then Ashton challenged CNN to a dual to see who could obtain 1 Million followers and if he won he would “ding-dong ditch" CNN founder Ted Turner's house. "I found it astonishing that one person that can actually have as big of a voice online as what an entire media company can on Twitter," Kutcher says in a video.

No single Twitter account had attracted 1 million followers, according to TwitterCounter and Twitterholic, two sites that track the most popular Twitter users. "So I just thought that was just kind of an amazing comment on the state of our media, and I said that, if I beat CNN to 1 million viewers, then I would ding-dong ditch Ted Turner -- because I don't think it's gonna happen."

Well, guess what…………ASHTON WON!!!!

Now for the latest.......... Variety magazine reported Monday that San Francisco-based Twitter.com had partnered with TV producers Reveille and Brillstein Entertainment on an unscripted show that would be “putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format.” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said there was “no official Twitter TV show” in the works, but “we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.”

Kutcher used Twitter to post a link to a news report about the partnership along with this message: “Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus.” Ashton is holds the record of 2 million Twitter followers. “It’s all fun and games until somebody gets stalked,” Kutcher wrote in a Twitter posting late Monday.

Demi has also threatened to shut down her Twitter account, which has more than 1 million followers as well. “I hope this isn’t true—if it is, our Twitter time may come to a quick and sad end!” Moore tweeted Monday.

Stone, who started Twitter just three years ago with co-founder Jack Dorsey, published a blog Monday saying that Twitter is “very open” and that “openness is not limited to the Web or even to mobile phones.”

“In dealing with networks and production companies we sometimes have simple agreements,” Stone wrote. “Regarding the Reveille and Brillstein project reported today, we have a lightweight, non-exclusive, agreement with the producers which helps them move forward more freely.”

And, he wrote, “Twitter’s open approach might have the power to transform television—the dominant communications receiver worldwide. We’re very excited to see where these experiments take us.”