Ashton Kutcher: 'Media @&$#%! Twitter up'
By David Goldman @DavidGoldmanCNN May 23, 2013: 2:50 PM ET
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| Ashton Kutcher was the first to amass 1 million Twitter followers. But he's not happy with what Twitter has become. |
Ashton Kutcher was one of Twitter's first break-through celebrities. But he thinks the social media platform is broken.
"For lack of a better verb, the media came and @&$#%! [expletive deleted] it up," Kutcher said at the CTIA wireless industry trade show in Las Vegas on Thursday. "When I first got on, it felt like the democratization of media. Now it just feels like media."
Kutcher became the first person to have 1 million followers on Twitter. He now has 14.5 million and remains an avid tweeter. But he said he feels the experience of using Twitter has become less personal.
"The bigger vision for Twitter when Jack [Dorsey] created it was to empower communication to happen as things were taking place," Kutcher said. "Now it's just a bunch of companies and people constantly pitching crap."
Kutcher said he believes the social network will improve over time, however. He thinks the next phase of Twitter will be smart, connected appliances that tweet. For example, coffee machines could tweet to let users know when their coffee is done.
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In a wide-ranging discussion, Kutcher, who has invested in several tech firms, offered his insight into the future of mobility, the Internet and social media.
When asked about Internet television, Kutcher said content creators that talk about smartphones and tablets as "second screens" were wrong.
"The mobile device is the first screen," Kutcher said. "Content should be interactive."
He thinks that the National Football League and Major League Baseball have begun to understand the importance of offering interactive elements on mobile devices at sporting events. But he was surprised that similar experiences don't widely exist for movies or television, enabling viewers to interact with the programming as they watch.
Kutcher also noted that television broadcasters should be wary of Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500), Netflix (NFLX) and other tech upstarts. But he also said that the networks have time to figure out a strategy to defeat them.
"The reason TV continues to beat Internet TV is that their content is better, and that's because that's where the advertising money is," he said. "But [CBS (CBS, Fortune 500) CEO] Les Moonves told me four years ago that when the Internet is matching TV advertising dollar for dollar, we have a problem." (Kutcher currently stars on the CBS sitcom hit "Two and a Half Men.')
Kutcher also briefly touched on some of the companies he has invested in, including the controversial Airbnb service, which allows people to rent out their homes temporarily to strangers.
The service was recently made illegal in New York, and it has been a lightning rod for criticism as some people have returned to find their homes ransacked or items stolen. But Kutcher defended Airbnb.
"We've had less crime at Airbnb than at most hotels around the world -- by far," he said.
Thank you Cnn. From reetime news technology.
Thank you Cnn. From reetime news technology.
