Los Angeles - Hollywood Actor and Producer Ashton Kutcher became the first person to reach one million followers on the mobile microblogging service Twitter. In doing so, Kutcher won a much-publicized duel with CNN to get to 1 million followers first. The hype around the service also reached new levels as TV-host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey sent out her first tweet on Friday.

"It's a big milestone. This brings Twitter mainstream," said Andrew Cherwenka, a Huffington Post contributor to CNN. "A lot of people are saying this is going to be the death of Twitter, and I don't understand that at all," Cherwenka added. "It's just another stage in Twitter's acceleration."

Kutcher's Twitter account crossed the 1 million mark on Twitter shortly after 2 AM ET on Friday, CNN's breaking-news feed passed the mark just before 3 AM ET. Some eight hours later, CNN reported that Winfrey sent her first tweet and said, "HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY."

TechCrunch has reported that Google is in "late stage" talks to acquire Twitter, which recently was valued at $250 million. Company representatives at Twitter responded: "Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we're just getting started."

Related Links:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/17/ashton.cnn.twitter.battle/

http://tinyurl.com/c64vea

http://twitter.com/aplusk

Image by SpreePiX - Berlin