A wonderful reason to follow someone on Twitter

From CNN:

Make Drew Carey give away $1 million
It's a good thing he didn't go with "@andrew."

Drew Olanoff, cancer-fighter and blogger, is auctioning off his enviable Twitter username "@drew" to benefit the LiveStrong foundation. Its value has already been raised to $1 million, thanks to that other Drew -- last name Carey.

"I thought we would find a Drew who would bid $10,000 on the last day and that was it," Olanoff said. "I certainly didn't think Drew Carey would get wind of it."

Get wind he did. After watching his favorite soccer team, the Seattle Sounders, win on October 3, the Cleveland comedian turned to Twitter to share his elation and saw that Olanoff was auctioning off his "@drew" moniker. Full of good vibes, Carey immediately put in a bid.

"I thought it was so much fun, that I bid $25,000," Carey told CNN. "I was in such a good mood that I raised it to $100,000."

Olanoff was taken back by Carey's generosity at the time -- especially considering they'd never "met" until Tuesday, when he sat down with Carey via Skype on CNN.com -- but Carey wasn't done bidding just yet.

In the middle of an interview last week with CBS (the corporation writing Carey's checks, as he's the host of the network's "The Price is Right"), he upped the ante from $100,000 to a cool $1 million if he gets the same amount of followers by midnight on December 31.

Yes, you read that correctly -- Drew Carey plans to give away a million dollars to LiveStrong, if he gets a million Twitter followers by the end of the year.

"It was just one of those things that you felt compelled in the moment to do something," Carey, who said that he's had loved ones go through cancer treatments, explained. "I didn't talk to my agents about it or my account or anything. I thought, well, I could afford it, and it's a really good cause. I was really intrigued with all these people all over the Twitterverse to retweet things and follow, and raise a million bucks."

Judging by how quickly the follower count increases every time his @DrewFromTV Twitter page is refreshed -- on Tuesday evening, he had over 76,000 followers -- Carey is well on his way to doing so. Of course, if he doesn't reach a million followers, the donation will be prorated: If there are 500,000 followers when the clock strikes midnight, then $500,000 will be given to LiveStrong.

Very cool -- click here to sign up. You do need to set up a Twitter account first.

I don't follow Carey that much -- I am quite decoupled from commercial entertainment business but I always liked his work and he seems like a really regular guy. Fun to have a beer with. An awesome contribution to an awesome cause. Thanks Drew (both of you!)

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This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on October 14, 2009 9:01 PM.

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