Here’s a great way to end the week. Twitter confirmed this afternoon that it was recently the victim of attacks that appear to have user information for around 250,000 in the hands of hackers. [More]
Not That You’d Regret Anything, But Unlike Email, You Can Unsend Twitter Direct Messages
By 2.1.13
It’s late, you’ve just gotten out of a vigorous, cocktail-fueled round of validation with your friends (“There’s nothing wrong with you, he’s just immature!”) and you’re feeling communicative. A few bleep blop taps of the phone later and you’ve just sent a direct message on Twitter to that guy you were sorta seeing saying things you instantly regret. All is not lost, however. [More]
Twitter’s Vine Video App Isn’t Even A Week Old & Already It Has A Porn Problem
By 1.28.13
It’s just a baby app, but already Twitter’s video-sharing service Vine is coming under fire for having a bit of a hardcore pornography problem. Vine launched last Thursday, touting the ability to allow iPhone and iPod Touch users to take six second videos and then share them with others. As with any social media, sex is going to well, pop up. But putting a hardcore pornography video in users’ home feeds as an “editor’s pick,” well… that’s not good. [More]
Can You Get Away With Complaining About Your Job Online? Maybe, Says NLRB
By 1.22.13
Any number of people have gone online to vent their exhaustion after a particularly tough day at work. But where do you draw the line between innocuous, “What a day!” posts and statements that could actually get you fired from your job? And what about valid gripes with working conditions? [More]
List Of Companies With Worst Customer Service Scores Is Full Of Familiar Names
By 1.8.13 — Updated: 3.19.13
Bank of America, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Delta, Charter, American Airlines — these are just a few of the all-too-familiar companies sitting comfortably in the back of the pack in terms of customer service for 2012. [More]
Library Of Congress Amassing Billions Of Tweets For Researchers Wondering If You Liked That Movie
By 1.7.13
Unless you’ve set your Twitter account to private, every time you ponder the meaning of a vapid celebrity’s fame or tweet about how much you love your new Spanx, those missives are public. If you only have say, 47 followers those tweets might not seem very public, but hey, maybe the Library of Congress is reading anyway. [More]
Should You Feel Guilty After Receiving Amazing Customer Service?
By 12.28.12
We’ve long been advocates of using Twitter for customer service when the regular channels of customer service don’t work. There’s something about the combination of pithy microblog updates and public posting that some companies have done very well, and that others have been unable to manage. Others are giving up on the platform entirely.If you can get help via Twitter, that turns you into a VIP, and that made Lindsay Robertson of The Awl uncomfortable after she used Twitter to complain to Home Depot about her backordered air conditioner. [More]
Twitterers Use Starbucks’ #Spreadthecheer Campaign Against Coffee Company
By 12.18.12
So the folks at Starbucks UK thought they could ask people on Twitter to use the #spreadthecheer hashtag and have their happy holiday messages displayed on a big public video screen. The people at Starbucks have apparently never used the Internet. [More]
Lidl On The Hook For $260K In Christmas Chicken Dinners After Twitter Campaign Goes Viral
By 12.12.12
Winner, winner, so very many chicken dinners for Lidl to hand out in Belgium. The discount retailer is on the hook for about $260,000 worth of Christmas chicken dinners, after it offered to trade five four-course meals in exchange for every dedicated hash tag on Twitter. So this is either a resounding success or… or Lidl will not call it anything but a success. [More]
Twitter To Users: You Want Filters On Your Photos? We’ll Give You Filters.
By 12.11.12
In the latest news regarding the super passive-aggressive fight, between Twitter and Instagram, Twitter is responding to Instagram’s decision to break itself rather than share their photos easily through Twitter by announcing its own set of fancy, and of course, vintage-y looking photo filters. Oh, you got served via a nice sepia wash! Or something. [More]
Oprah Wholeheartedly Endorses The Surface Tablet In A Tweet Sent From Her iPad
By 11.20.12
Of all the people we never thought we’d have to say this to: Oprah Winfrey, celebrity endorsements? You’re doing it wrong. The one and only O just looooves showering her fans with expensive, exciting gifts during her “Favorite Things” special once a year. This year she was super fired up about the new MS Surface. Earlier this week she gushed about the Windows tablet, but just so happened to send that admiring tweet from her iPad. D’oh. [More]
Anthony Bourdain Says Cadillac Is A Great Car For Stashing Dead Prostitutes
By 11.13.12
Anthony Bourdain is many things: chef, author, TV host, and hero of all who simply don’t give a crap. But he’s not a shill for Cadillac, and he’s less than chuffed about one of his “No Reservations” episodes on Travel Channel turning into a long-form ad for the car brand. [More]
Twitter Apologizes For Freaking Everyone Out By Accidentally Resetting A Bunch Of Passwords
By 11.8.12
First of all: Take a deep breath. If you got an email from Twitter saying it had reset your password, the odds are that everything is just fine. The company said it sorta kinda accidentally “unintentionally reset passwords of a larger number of accounts” than it meant to. There’s been no data breach, Twitter just went a bit overboard and user information is safe. [More]
Apple & Amazon Top This Year’s Brand Loyalty Survey, Blackberry Hangs On In Last Place
By 10.26.12
If there’s anything we want from our products and the brands that provide them, it’s love, true love. Well, maybe not quite that level, but according to the most recent Brand Keys Loyalty Leaders List, we consumers are craving an emotional connection to brands. And when they fill that special place in our hearts, they earn our loyalty. [More]
Delta Learns That It’s Not A Good PR Move To Upset Judy Blume
By 10.16.12
Judy Blume is a world-famous author of books for kids and young adults (I still remember the eye-opening experience of thumbing through my older sister’s dogeared copy of Tiger Eyes), but in the parlance of Us Weekly, she’s just like us! Except she has 75,000 Twitter followers to gripe to about her problems with Delta. [More]
10 Examples Of Why Companies Should Just Avoid Twitter Altogether
By 10.8.12
People talk about the risk posed by the immediacy of the Internet. Items can be posted with little thought about consequences, or made public by accident, and no matter how much deleting or editing you might do, the truth — as the kids say — is out there. Nowhere is this danger more evident than the Twittersphere. [More]
Chrysler Tweets No One In Detroit "Knows How To F****** Drive"
By 3.10.11
Chrysler is in damage-control mode after its official Twitter account chirped, “I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f****** drive.” Yeeks, that’s gonna backfire. Screenshot of NSFW language inside. [More]
Comcast Loves You So Much They Keep Billing You… 4 Months After You Canceled
By 9.30.08 — Updated: 3.25.13
Oh Comcast, you romantic. You were so sorry to see Michal leave that you pretended he didn’t. We get it: he bikes, he blogs, he helps toddlers learn Polish. But after four months of him repeatedly asking you to stop billing him, when you still won’t stop it begins to look a little stalker-ish. Your computers can’t always be down.
