Tower Bridge bot killed by Twitter, replaced with marketing
infovore.org
infovore.org
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 to be handled.
I perfectly understand the general concept of fighting user name squatters, but this just makes no sense to me from any point of view.
Is there any nasty legislation that can penalize Twitter for having accounts misrepresenting the official namesake?
However, this is probably the best way to protect a name you use on Twitter: register a trademark and let them know that you're using your registered name as a Twitter handle and want it maintained for your business/organisation.
Sure these things may seem "wrong" ethically, but it is clear at this point that Twitter does not care.
It's also why I put my domain on my business card but not my Twitter, all it'd take is an account hack and some spam or a backhander from some firm and it would't be mind anymore with no recourse whatsoever.
I wonder if my very general Twitter handle is a boon or a risk.
Isn't the best option to have the domain you control list all the details you want, including the social stuff?
Would you react better if a business or an individual has a specific owned domain as a handle?
As a software oriented business and/or person, isn't using anything but a unique domain considered less professional?
Granted, it's one extra click, but I'm not particularly interested in your timeline of tweets. I want to see your work.
The only difference is cost and delay. That is to say, due process don't come cheap. On Twitter, the seizure happens instantly and no one pays legal fees. Within ICANN arbitration, it can get bloody.
For over a year I ran a bot called @amazon which when messaged would look up the price of a book using the amazon api and respond to the user.
When amazon decided to join twitter, they contacted twitter who simply deleted my account and gave it to them without contacting me. After contacting amazon as I would have gladly given them the bot, they informed me they didn't ask for it to be deleted but to contact me.
At the time twitter made some excuse about how it is against their TOS to give my email to another party (yet acceptable to delete with even contacting me)...
Seems like things haven't changed at le twit
This is pretty brazen. They can be bullies if they want with their own space, but the lack of communication is amazingly rude. However, I remember experiencing exactly the same thing when my undergrad email was changed, without any notification whatsoever, because some TA had joined who had the same last name. The admin was completely unapologetic when I shared my irritation. So maybe it's to be expected in the culture.
Twitter... just like a lame undergrad sysadmin.
Ironicly, I can't see them ever getting nearly as many followers as the bot ever had.
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.
I had a similar thing with @apress a few years ago, I set up an automated twitter feed to post the daily book deal to a twitter account, a couple of months afterwards I checked and realized @apress was just given to Apress without any email or notice (everything I posted too was lost)
Fair play to apress I contacted them and they got back to me within half an hour, they had no idea twitter hadn’t contacted me they were just given the account and they apologised to me..
I very much doubt its the TB more likely to be the TB search, marketing or social media agency who want to control the brand rather than embrace and engage (ironic eh) infact I’d doubt that TB is fully aware of what has happened (until they get into the office on monday morning and see the hundreds of @ replies they've had)
https://twitter.com/#!/brandcarrie/status/20333195936
About to set up a Tower Bridge Twitter with the IT boys... Any advice?
"follow our new Twitter account for Tower Bridge.... @TowerBridgeExh"
@TowerBridgeExh is invalid, so if this is the same one, then they didn't originally go with the stolen account. I also see several similar accounts (like @tower_bridge), so this might not be related.
EDIT: User, not owner.
Way to piss off your target market.
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.
New blog post: http://infovore.org/archives/2011/06/12/towerbridge-a-bit-mo...
"Trademark: We reserve the right to reclaim user names on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those user names. Accounts using business names and/or logos to mislead others will be permanently suspended."
How they handled it might have sucked, but it was fairly clear what they would end up doing in situations like this.
Say, as an example, I own Tim's Bike Shop in Australia, and have @timsbikeshop on Twitter. What happens if there's a US Tim's Bike Shop that decides it wants that Twitter id? To me, both have the same 'right' (I use quotes because it's obviously not a right) to the id, but I win because I was in first. Does Twitter assume because the second claimant is legit the first is not?
Set up a website.
But yes, if you want to maintain a reliable presence, you have to pay for it.
"You ride on their network for free" as if users were leeching off of content twitter itself had made, when it's possible to just as easily argue that it's twitter who is leeching off of its users.
Musicians will often credit their "fans" as vital (e.g. [1]). Great music is still great even if only heard by a few people, making the fans impact at best indirect. Yet in the case of social networks, users and their participation are all the network has, period.
[1] http://www.celebuzz.com/2011-03-07/demi-lovato-tells-fans-i-...
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.
Not true at all, although it's easy to understand why someone would wish that this were the case. The sole purpose of trademarks (really trademark law) is to protect the holder of the intellectual property.
Market confusion is a test used to determine whether a trademark infringement has taken place, but it's only one of several possible tests.