Twitter is dipping its toes in the waters of ecommerce with a new “Buy Now” button rolling out today, and it’s doing so without trying to make a huge splash. The feature will only be available to just 26 handpicked musical artists and nonprofit organizations at the start, and just brands. [More]
Twitpic Shutting Down Over Trademark Spat With Twitter
By 9.5.14
While Twitter has allowed users to upload photos directly to their feeds for quite some time, some users still prefer Twitpic for hosting and sharing their images. But Twitter apparently has an issue with the “Twit” part of Twitpic’s name, so the service will soon cease operations instead of getting caught up in a drawn-out legal fight over a name. [More]
IRS Turning Its Baleful Gaze At Company Cafeterias That Churn Out Free Food
By 9.2.14
Do you hear that noise? It’s thousands of forks clattering in the hands of Silicon Valley employees currently enjoying a free lunch. The Internal Revenue Service is taking a closer look at the trend of company cafeterias shoveling free food onto employees’ plates, saying that smorgasbord is a taxable fringe benefit. [More]
Don’t Want To See Tweets In Your Timeline From Strangers You Don’t Follow? Too Bad, Says Twitter
By 8.20.14
As if it’s not already annoying enough to see promoted tweets in your Twitter timeline, an inevitable advertising move that we’ve grumbled about and gotten over, Twitter says it’s going to sprinkle strangers’ musings, missives and messages into users’ timelines. Just because it can, apparently. [More]
There’s Really No Way Twitter Can Stop Some Users From Being A-Holes
By 8.14.14
As you’ve probably heard, in the wake of actor Robin Williams’ death earlier this week, his daughter Zelda Williams was subjected to some particularly nasty messages on Twitter, causing her to close her account on the service rather than have to sort through hurtful, nasty statements from strangers. This is not good news for Twitter, which now has to answer to stockholders. And so the company is saying it’s looking into how to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, but there’s a bigger question — is that even possible? [More]
Tweet A Coke To Your Friends, If They Were Going To The Movies Anyway
By 7.28.14
Do you want to give your movie-loving friend a gift, but not a really good gift? Thanks to a partnership between Coke, Twitter, and Regal Cinemas, you can tweet a Coke-branded beverage to a friend… or to a random stranger, if that’s what you’re into. Why? So someone would write an article about it, I guess. [More]
Family Kicked Off Southwest Flight Because Of Dad’s Tweet
By 7.23.14
It’s pretty great when your customer complaint over social media receives a swift, decisive response from the target company. What is not so great is when that response is to boot you and your elementary-school-age children off a plane before takeoff because you complained about a specific employee’s actions over Twitter. [More]
Verizon Trying To Twitter-Snipe Mildly Annoyed Customers Of Other Carriers
By 7.14.14
Having written about every major wireless carrier over the last 4+ years, I’ve come to realize one thing: Just about everyone hates their current wireless provider and is constantly talking about switching. So it makes sense that these competitors would scour the competition’s social media feeds and try to lure away disgruntled customers. Yet only Verizon, by far the largest carrier in the U.S., seems to be making a go of it. [More]
FAFSA Twitter Account Sorry For Posting “I’m Poor” Tweet Aimed At Financial Aid Applicants
By 6.25.14
You know what isn’t always that funny to people who can’t afford say, college? Calling them out for being poor on social media. Oh, hello, Federal Student Aid’s twitter account. You seem to have made a mistake in that area. [More]
Delta Apologizes For Ghana Giraffe Gaffe On Twitter
By 6.17.14
Last night, the U.S. men’s soccer team edged out the team from Ghana for its first victory in 2014 World Cup play. People everywhere went online to congratulate the team, including Delta Air Lines, which didn’t do quite enough research about the wildlife in Ghana before it Tweeted. [More]
Millions Of Users In The Dark When Hijackers Take Down TweetDeck
By 6.11.14
If you’re an avid user of Twitter’s TweetDeck you may have noticed something was awry this afternoon. The social media site shut down its popular service after discovering users’ account security was at risk. [More]
Denny’s Tweets About Vegetable Acquisition, Wins At Brand Social Media
By 5.29.14
Yesterday, Apple and Beats Electronics announced that their union is official: Apple will acquire the headphone and streaming-music company for about $3 billion. As the news made headlines, one national brand wanted to nudge its way into the “trending topics” spotlight, and achieved the best current events/brand promotion tweet that we have ever seen. [More]
Seattle Apologizes For Labeling Stuck-In-Traffic Drivers As “Scumbags”
By 5.6.14
When government organizations try to be funny on social media, it usually falls flat. And when that attempt at humor is directed at people who are likely in a humorless mood — like, say… people stuck in a traffic jam — it will probably end in an apology. [More]
Amazon Now Lets You Use Hashtags To Shop On Twitter
By 5.5.14
Because you should apparently never take your eyes off of Twitter, lest you miss the same updates and photos that your friends are also sharing simultaneously on Facebook, Instagram, and whatever else the kids today are all hopped up on, Amazon has launched a new service that lets you add items directly to your Amazon shopping cart with the use of a hashtag. [More]
General Mills’ New Policy: If You Engage With Us Online, You Can Never Sue The Company
By 4.17.14
Companies want customers to engage with them online as if they’re just another pal on Facebook or Twitter, one that can offer downloadable coupons and promote contests with attractive prizes. But in new language recently added to General Mills’ website, consumers who interact with the company online will be agreeing to give up the right to sue the company in the future. [More]
United Flight From NYC To D.C. Grounded After Security Finds Bomb Threat On Twitter
By 4.17.14
Earlier this week a Dutch teenager landed in hot water after sending a threatening tweet to American Airlines. While the teen says she was joking, the airline took the threat seriously, as it should have. After a number of copycat tweets, nearly all airlines have been keeping a close eye on social media. That vigilance resulted in a temporarily grounded United Airlines flight Wednesday evening. [More]
U.S. Airways: We’re Not Firing Staffer Who Tweeted Toy Plane Porn
By 4.15.14
This week got off to a hilarious start if you like corporate social media gaffes. US Airways is awfully embarrassed about the incident where they responded to a customer complaint with a photograph of a nude woman posed with a model plane lodged in her jetway. Contrary to our predictions, the airline says that posting the photo was “an honest mistake” and no one is getting fired. Someone might want to throw away that toy plane, though. [More]
Teenagers Decide New Cool Thing To Do Is Make Copycat Airline Bomb Threats On Twitter
By 4.15.14
I don’t envy teenagers — it’s just so hard to keep up with the coolest trends. Like are we still saying “for shizzle?” Are high fives acceptable? But if all your friends started tweeted fake bomb threats to American Airlines just because one Dutch girl did, would you throw yourself off that cliff, too? [More]
