All in Twitter

What Twitter's Acquisition of Tweetie Means

Don Martelli

Tweetie now becomes Twitter for iPhoneYesterday, Twitter announced some pretty big news that I'm not sure got the attention that it deserved -- they bought the popular iPhone/Mac client Tweetie.

For iPhone users and Mac heads, Tweetie is a popular applications because of its ease of use and Mac-like user interface. The company also announced that they brought on Tweetie's founder and added him to the mobile roster. Conversely, they renamed the application Tweetie for iPhone, with Tweetie for iPad coming sometime later this year.

So, what does this mean for Twitter really?

The kids don't tweet

Don Martelli
,

I was at a Northeastern University event recently where the audience was a mix bag of administrators, faculty, staff and students. It's always interesting to watch an audience of one brand mix and interact. I've working in education before - both at the college level and the prep school level - and the distance between each group is pretty much the same. The faculty is always riffing with the administrators. The students enjoy the buffer between them and the teachers. And so on and so on. 

It was interesting to hear the groups interact with each other and talk about university issues. One of the common topics was social media and its use. A lot of the talk was about the fun aspect of it and connecting with old friends. One small conversation I was part of evolved around Twitter. To my surprise (though I'm not sure why it really shocked me) was that no one really seemed to get it. What can we, as a university use it for; how should we use it; who should be using it, etc. The biggest message I received from the group was that all the stories about teens not using Twitter is absolutely true.

ESPN and the Catholic School Teacher

Don Martelli
Media, ,

So I've had some time to sit on the ESPN-Twittergate story. If you haven't followed it, ESPN told employees that they were going to prohibit the use of Twitter unless posts served the needs of the network, i.e. don't post about what you're drinking, post about how many K's Beckett had last night.

The guidelines were sniffed out by Mashable; was tweeted by Ric Bucher, a NBA beat reporter for ESPN and ESPN.com with over 18k followers; and was analyzed by a zillion other bloggers/media outlets and tweeted like there was no tomorrow.

To get the word from the horses mouth, read this article on Sports Business Daily. But basically, ESPN.com Editor-In-Chief Rob King, one of the architects of the new plan, said:

#favfriday The Big Move Edition

Don Martelli
#favfriday, ,

So today MS&L Boston moves from our location at 745 Boylston Street to 33 Arch Street. Really excited about it as we'll be bunkering with the wikked smaht people at Digitas (not to mention creative and cool).

Without any further adeu, here's today's #favfriday:

One of the advantages of being at 745 Boylston was the fact that I was right down the street from the Apple store. Ironically enough, today is the official launch of the iPhone 3Gs.I had to include spot-on location coverage of all the crazy Apple fans waiting in line to get their new toy (I'd normally be in that line, but I'm no eligible for the upgrade just yet).

Online ID Brand Jacking

Don Martelli
Branding, ,

Since the explosion of social media, brands have looked at it like it was the wild wild west. For the most part it was. Remember back in the mid to late 90s when there was a dot-com for everything? People were snatching up URLs like looters during a riot. 

With the announcement of Facebook usernames and Twitter verified accounts, brands (personal or business) need to step up their game and solidify their online identity before it gets jacked. In the same vein, they need to have a slush fund for those folks who are going snatch up account names JUST so they can leverage it with a brand and get paid. It's going to happen. Trust me.

Thoughts on #unfollowdiddy

Don Martelli
Branding, Celebrities, Music, ,

This whole #unfollowdiddy thing is quite interesting from a branding perspective. For those of you with your head in the sand, I'm talking about the recent explosion of Twitter use by celebrities to "connect closer with their fans," i.e. build up their brand empires and grow their celebrity status. Hello @aplusk and @oprah, et al. After the "race to one million followers," there seems to be a little bit of back lash by the general public about celebrities crowding the space that we at one point seemed to own.

Twitter is now populated with more content and more "hey look, follow me" type people than it was when I joined nearly two years ago. I'm guessing the #unfollowdiddy backlash comes from the huge turn off Twitter can be if used by people that are all about themselves, the hey, look at me crowd. I'm guessing Diddy is one of those types of users. His updates are now protected so only his followers can read what he says. Good move? No. Diddy has to understand that no matter what he does, there will be a set of consumers that don't like his music, don't like his clothing line or just don't like him period.

Load More