There Goes The First Twitter Casualty
One of my fellow editors here at JOAB is quite fond of Twitter. Frankly, I don’t quite give a damn about Twitter. It’s just one of those new annoying nuisances that have become a craze in the online community. I once signed up for the service, added friends, and activated IM notifications, and I was blasted with all sorts of junk a dozen times a minute. I turned it off, since then, not seeing the point why I’d like to be updated whenever a friend of mine passes gas at 3 in the morning, or when someone eats chocolate cake (like what I’m actually doing right now).
Of course, I thought this about blogging too, when it first came into popular use. So does this mean Twitter will fly like blogging did? We have yet to see.
But I’ve always thought that Twitter, like any other “personal publishing” platform will soon claim its casualties, in particular when it comes to the foot-in-mouth syndrome everyone is vulnerable to. First to fall was Steve Rubel (or at least first known person), in that dreadful I-probably-shouldn’t-have-said-that moment. And here’s what he said.
PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash,
Thing is, Steve is a top exec at top PR firm Edelman (the same Edelman of the Windows Vista/Acer Ferrari Notebook infamy). He handles lots of accounts in the tech industry, and these mostly benefit from advertisements, product placements, and reviews on PC Magazine and its affiliate publications. PC Mag, in turn, thought of boycotting all of Edelman’s clients.
Damn, that must have caused Steve to resort to a lot of forehead slapping. Here’s his letter of apology, which I think is quite sincere (yeah, basically saying it was easy to take things out of context and all that).
In a world where it’s already easy enough to steal your identity or personal information via online means, and where social engineering is key to this being successfully perpetrated, why the heck would I actively give out this stalkee information to potential evildoers? I also risk divulging too much in those fits of carelessness, drunkenness, or simple loose-lippedness.
I just finished eating chocolate cake. Moving on to blueberry cheesecake.
(Is that 140 characters already?)
By the way, my copy of PC Mag came in the mail today—it just went straight to the trash.
Oh, NY Times has an article on Twitter due out tomorrow. Got that link from Steve Rubel’s twitter. And no, I didn’t get it via IM (I actually went to his status page).
I Twitter. It’s perfect frust-management! Steve Rubel’s tweet was IMNSO overblown in a traditional b’land way. Not to forget the dramatic PC Mag answer.
But then again… isn’t Edelman the agency who perfectly plays with all the blogdrama? PSP3, Target, Acer/MS, I have said it before here at JOAB, have to admire them for the consistent there’s no such thing as a little controversy attitude. That’s marketing (branding) that works. Just think of how well-spread the name Edelman has become among bloggers last 6 months. And have we ever read that someone ditched Edelman as PR agency?
I haven’t.
franky said this on April 24, 2007 5:59 pm
Was I the one fond of Twitter?
Hmm. So Franky, you mean we’ve all been taken for a ride? Does Edelman subscribe to the “no such thing as bad publicity” adage? They’re great at generating buzz, then!!
jangelo said this on April 24, 2007 8:37 pm
Angelo, I would not say that Steve Rubel wanted to create THIS buzz, but I still think that the MS/Acer and PSP3 campaigns were planned. With people such as Rubel on board Edelman surely was aware of the possible reaction of the blogosphere and everytime it was a cheap gig. Especially to get Apple minded bloggers write a week long about MS over the Holidays was admirable IMNSO.
Yes they did it on purpose, and Edelman weren’t Edeleman if they would not regularly create some new buzz.
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swissloveo said this on May 19, 2007 10:33 am