Ashton Kutcher might have been proclaimed King of Twitter by the Oprah show, but I’m a Jester. Well, I’ve been called Mayor more but I’m just another clown in the Twitterverse. Ashton though was called King because he’s got the most followers, but at least he’s no clown this time.

The thing about Ashton though is that he didn’t see it as about himself at all. On the Oprah show, Ashton made it clear that social media and social networking is about empowerment of the individual. The point he felt of being at 1 million followers along side CNN was that one person could compete and have their voice heard as well as a major media outlet.

His statements talked to how each person can be their own broadcaster. He also talked about Digg and how you and I can decide what’s the most important news.* Sadly, the hosts of the show were totally gaga about him being at a million and about trying to help Oprah send a tweet.

My opinion? That episode did not make Oprah or that group look real smart. Maybe they were just playing at being silly but it just seemed that they didn’t get it. It might have been the fact that they talked over Ashton and Ev both.

For me, Ashton’s being crowned a king by those folks is something I’ll ignore because he didn’t jump on the title. He sloughed it off as more about the statement that one person can have a voice, a large voice.

Bonus points to Ashton for using live video to draw in followers and making it light hearted. Negative karma points to CNN for taking a senior correspondent’s time to pimp out their Twitter ID.

Will I be following Mr. @aplusk? Not today. But then again, if I ever want to see Demi’s bottom I won’t have a problem signing up. He’s one of the most social media savvy folks I’ve heard on television.

What’s your take?

Please check out Ben Barden’s experience so far with this.

*Digg comes under fire for the rabid manipulators, but in principle it’s all about the users and what they consider news. Don’t be a hater.

CNN Acquires CNNbrk Twitter Account With Nearly 1 Million Followers
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CNN has taken control of the @cnnbrkaccount — and its 944,000 followers. We don’t know the transaction details, and are waiting to hear back from CNN’s PR department to confirm the deal and offer any details.

There’s a huge part of me that just doesn’t care. Honestly, does it make much difference at that point how many followers?

What’s important here is the value of having that many built in followers. Imagine the instant increase in click through to CNN’s news articles.

On the other hand, let’s assume for a minute that most of those folks weren’t otherwise following CNN. Could it be they’d drop just to shut down the volume. I’m imagining that CNN would be broadcasting Twitter posts frequently.

Myself, I’d hardly notice an extra hundred tweets each day, but for some users that will be a veritable flood. Perhaps the time has come to really encourage folks to group the folks they follow?

In any case, this is a landmark event in social networking. First it was web domains, now it’s social networking IDs. What’s next?