It took longer than many thought — and comedians had a laugh at their expense — but singer Alicia Keys and her celebrity friends raised US$1 million for an AIDS charity and, with it, lived to tweet* again.

    Keys and her Keep a Child Alive charity co-founder Leigh Blake on Monday said their widely-followed “digital death” campaign reached its US$1 million goal after pharmaceutical* entrepreneur Stewart Rahr pitched in* US$500,000.

    At stake, along with raising funds to help millions of children and families living with AIDs in Africa and India, were the digital lives of celebrities who vowed to stay off social networking Web sites Twitter and Facebook until the US$1 million was raised.

    The celebrities included Justin Timberlake, Ryan Seacrest, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and Usher. Their campaign launched on World AIDS Day, December 1, amid great fan fare with the expectation it would quickly reach its goal.

    After all, the celebrities all have millions of fans. Lady Gaga boasts 7.3 million followers on Twitter, alone. Timberlake has 3.6 million, and Seacrest has 3.7 million.

    For its part, Keep a Child Alive said: “Although we never expected to raise US$1 million overnight, we are completely blown away that we were able to achieve our goal in less than a week.” (SD-Agencies)