Lord Sugar's Twitter race with Piers Morgan

Piers Morgan has had a busy week: not only taking over Larry King's daily talk show on CNN but dealing with a flurry of tweets from Lord Sugar.

Sugar, also in the States this week, has been following Morgan's CNN launch like a hawk, determined to prove he's a match for Piers. But how to compare success?

Lord Sugar's chosen battleground is that of Twitter followers. He issued his challenge to Piers on Monday: "If you dont exceed my followers by Friday you are a failure.I am sure all will agree."

Morgan had an advantage in adding followers: the chance to advertise his Twitter details on his CNN show. As Sugar complained in another tweet: "He flashes on screen every 15 mins to follow him,can you imagine if I did that on the apprentice."

And Sugar had more to say as he watched Morgan's CNN debut: "@piersmorgan seriously u look like u have a Hitler style comb over with a bouffant quiff. Ann said what's he done to his hair?fix it quickly" (You can imagine Sugar and his wife Lady Ann sitting in their Florida home watching a massive TV together.) 

This was too much for Morgan, who flashed back: "Lord_Sugar Taking sartorial advice from you is like getting dietary tips from the world's fattest man."

Morgan has been busy tweeting in response to many of the 30 messages Sugar sent him in the first four days of this week. And that may be a problem chez Morgan. As Sugar pointed out, "Piersy your wife has spoken, now be a good boy and do as the wife says."

He linked to an article on Digital Spy, quoting Morgan's wife, Celia Walden, complaining about his tweeting: "The Twittering has got to stop, I wish he did have a lackey who did it, but it's him. And so you sit there every meal now and you might as well not be there. It's a disease, it really is."

But what about the battle of follower numbers? Yesterday, Sugar entered the fray again: "You are 80k behind with all that begging every15 mins on your show . I told you if you don't pass me by Friday you're a failure."

Morgan was confident he'd still make it: "I'd get that plane ready Lordy, to flee my gloating. Just passing 210k followers, will take you within the week. #airtaxiforalan"

Not sure where Morgan got the 210 figure from, because at the time of writing the scores were:

Sugar: 290,835 followers

Morgan: 208,108 followers.

Sugar's challenge runs until the end of the day (midnight Eastern Standard Time, gentlemen?), but Morgan looks like he's in trouble.

What's new about all this is that two prominent figures are having what seems like exactly the kind of dialogue they'd have together - but in public. No media organisation is involved. (Twitter is just a platform: it has no editorial process and isn't even making money from this.)

Sugar often fires off tweets to individuals who have addressed him, and makes no distinction between members of the public and fellow public figures (Sunday night, in reply to a tweet from Sir Richard Branson - although not actually from him? - "how is your foot doing old boy").

They are, in effect, 'cutting out the middle man' - the media - and establishing a direct relationship with their audience. Where the media traditionally offered 'access' to public figures, today the likes of Sugar and Morgan can offer unmediated access to themselves, but on their own terms.

Big media has always traded personal information about the movie star, for instance, in return for publicity for the latest film; or an appearance on a discussion programme in return for a reference to an author's new book. Twitter lets those people make their own judgment about how much of themselves they want to 'give' in return for what they want to get across.

Sugar's tweets are peppered with messages he'd like people to hear - about charities he supports, or his Amscreen digital advertising business run by his son Simon.

Not all celebs are going to take to this like Sugar. He's a Twitter natural: his pronouncements in real life are short, pugnacious and entertaining. And he's less concerned with selling himself, or anything else, than most celebs. He just enjoys the process, and we're invited to treat him like the people we really do know. And if we're not listening, he won't care either - unless that means Piers ends up with more followers than him.