Twitter King Kutcher a Madoff for 'Attention Economy'

Remember all that talk about social networks revolutionizing media and leveling the playing field? Well, forget it, writes Simon Dumenco for Advertising Age, because Ashton Kutcher is the top twitterer in the world. “Mr. Demi Moore” became the first user to hit a million followers today, and “if this guy’s at the pinnacle of the Attention Economy, then the Attention Economy needs a bail-out.”

“Kutcher is leveraging his fame to make himself more famous by declaring his intention to become, well, even more famous,” Dumenco observes. That’s hardly the revolutionary new-media back-and-forth conversation social-networking moguls crow about. Kutcher himself follows just 70 feeds. This is old-fashioned broadcasting, the few profiting from the attention of the many. And considering what they’re getting in return, “The Many are getting ripped off.” (More Ashton Kutcher stories.)