A young Ottawa web entrepreneur is taking on the prime minister for bragging rights on Twitter.
Erin Blaskie runs an Ottawa firm which advises clients on how to use Internet marketing and all that is involved in new media.
She also runs Business Services Etc. and a Virtual Mentor service to help new companies. She set up her first web company when she was 21 years old.
Blaskie is an unabashed fan of Twitter, an online site which allows for short, immediate messages to be sent to those who subscribe.
A site called www.twellow.com lists registered users in communities and lists how many followers each user has listed. A follower is someone who tracks your Twitter comments.
In Ottawa, the prime minister is ranked number three with 14,000 followers; Blaskie is in the fourth spot with almost 11,000 followers.
After Blaskie was mentioned in a story about Twitter on CTV Ottawa's Tech Now show airing June 13, she launched a campaign to top the prime minister with more followers.
Blaskie said she launched the challenge to demonstrate the power of social media.
In the U.S., a recent contest between CNN's Larry King and actor Ashton Kutcher saw a race to see who could get 1 million followers first. The actor won and now has 2 million followers.
The top Ottawa Twitter user is a man who runs a Blog support site. He has over 35,000 followers. Internet marketer Jason O'Toole is next with 15,000 followers.
Click for more details on what her campaign is all about.
CTV Ottawa is also on Twitter @ctvottawa; and so is our tech specialist Paul Brent @technow.
