31–40 of 53 posts
Well, its Twitter. What were you expecting? You ride on their network for free, you can't be surprised when they opt to kick you off it without warning. Yes, the courtesy would be nice, but... Set up a website.
But yes, if you want to maintain a reliable presence, you have to pay for it.
So much wrong with this (feel free to add more numbered points): 1. The account was already popular (i.e., it served a purpose): 4000+ followers. 2. The account was already active with plenty of tweets. 3. No warning. No notice. 4. No back-up of the tweets. 5. The new account is clearly some useless social media expert bullshit. 6. In their defence, the new user claims not to have been informed of how this was going…
Sure these things may seem "wrong" ethically, but it is clear at this point that Twitter does not care.
Totally stupid from a customer service perspective, the on the part of both Twitter and the Tower Bridge.
New blog post: http://infovore.org/archives/2011/06/12/towerbridge-a-bit-mo...
Totally permissible under intellectual property law. The internet does not invalidate the concept of trademark. Totally stupid from a customer service perspective, the on the part of both Twitter and the Tower Bridge.
Now ask yourself (or even better, Twitter), `were consumers being deceived, or at risk of being?' `Is account name an instance of use of any brand?'
I believe Twitter should just follow the standard practice of using ™ and ® (TM and (R)) symbols for visual identification of accounts that are representing trademarks.
I'm not in a position now to see what the old account info had on it, but I know there's been plenty of people I've wanted to reach out to for a number of reasons, and it's sometimes damned near impossible to get ahold of someone without doing it publicly. I can 'tweet' someone publicly, but can't DM if they don't follow me. I can publicly blog post, perhaps, but often there's no 'contact form' (or it may just get ignored as spam). Usually blogs or other info have no phone number or email on them. Facebook? Do I post "hey, please call me!" on your wall?
Ugh - the web's become entirely far too 'one way', and then we wonder why stuff like this happens? It's pretty damn hard to make a connection to someone without it being public, and not every conversation should be made in public.
The followup http://infovore.org/archives/2011/06/12/towerbridge-a-bit-mo...
Obviously, the whole "intentional misleading" does not apply here. In general, I think it would benefit Twitter or at least the trademark holders, if Twitter introduced the opposite of a "Verified" badge: a "Unofficial" badge - which the user in this case can activate without needing approval from Twitter, if Twitter does not beat them to it.
Of course, the adverse effect is that it would also serve to point out how ruthlessly Twitter enforce their ToS, once one of the accounts are seized.