CULTURE: Celebs Stop Tweeting for AIDS; Who Cared?

Celebrities had a plan: Stay off Twitter until they raised $1 million for HIV/AIDS relief, in a campaign known as "Digital Death." Just one problem: They expected to raise the cash in a snap ... and they didn't. After six days of silence, just $450,000 had come in: Not a lot of money to someone like Kim Kardashian, who took part in the campaign and who can rake in about $10,000 for just one tweet. Their solution? Beg a billionaire pharmaceutical executive to pony up the last $500,000 needed.

Stewart Rahr did just that yesterday, allowing Kardashian and others including sister Khloe, Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, Ryan Seacrest, and Alicia Keys to resurrect themselves online. Why didn't the campaign work as expected? Some blamed servers crashing, others said there wasn't enough promotion, and still others believe it was a simple case of overestimating how much Twitter power the stars yield. "It's the worst mismanagement of star power I've ever seen in my life," one source tells the New York Post.