Hookers Love Twitter

Giving new meaning to the term “Twitter”, a very entrepreneurial little startup has started their own account to promote the services of their “massage providers” and “escorts”. Http://twitter.com/chicagoescorts (which is clearly not safe for work, unless you work in the porn industry) provides links to pictures and reviews of their newest employees, info on how to “get in touch” with them, and even prices. Plus, there are john-friendly forums like “What’s the Craziest Place You’ve Ever Had Sex”, and “What’s the Worst Thing She Can Do?”

It looks like the same people have set up accounts in about 30 major cities; @miamiescorts, @bostonescorts, etc. Altogether they have many hundreds if not thousands of followers. 

Presumably this has benefits not just in marketing, but also in recruiting new employees. Recruiting is vital in any business, and I hear prostitution has a lot of turnover. [Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.]

For the record, I think prostitution should be legalized, taxed and regulated. I’d say Health and Human Services was tailor-made to oversee it; just look at the name. And if we can have “sin taxes” on other things, why not on the big daddy of them all?

But for the moment it’s illegal, at least on paper. So, a Twitter account? One might think this would give law enforcement a “leg up” in finding this company (which doesn’t appear to be hiding anyway). But it seems they know the police care more about busting the hooker on the street than the pseudo-respectable “escort company”.

But how about the over 100 people following this account? Many of whom have apparently real names and faces on their accounts?

Hi Chris! Saw you on the internet!

Isn’t there a possibility that one might get in a little hot water with the wife/girlfriend/employer/potential employer/clients/friends/family for keeping up with the local hookers in such a public fashion?

And what about those being followed? As of now, this company is only following their other escort accounts. But unless I’m wrong, Twitter allows you to follow whoever you want. So don’t be surprised if you one day find yourself trying to explain why there’s a link to a prostitution service on your Twitter page.

If you do have that conversation, please let me know. I’d love to hear how it goes.

Twitter Fails Once Again, Slavish Devotion Continues

Nice grammar.

Previously I’ve written of my hatred for Twitter, including 15 Reasons Twitter Must Die, 1500 More Reasons Twitter Must Die, Twitter Fails Again, Twitter Officially Goes Mainstream, and Why is Mashable Obsessed with Twitter?. Not belabor the point (well perhaps), I’m afraid we need to revisit the issue. So let’s call this a series.

If your cell phone service occasionally went dead for an hour, would you be ranting all over the internet about how great it was? 

If the post office sometimes just didn’t deliver the mail for a day…OK, bad example.

How about if your cable or satellite TV went down during a big game like the Superbowl – even if you were watching something else? And next, during the World Series of Poker? And then during fairly-popular episodes of Oprah? Would you be excitedly proclaiming your provider’s greatness in your blog and encouraging others to use it?

As of today, Twitter worship continues, and yet this glorified Fisher-Price toy remains as unreliable as ever. This morning, TechCrunch reports on another Twitter outage, this time due to a “database problem“.

OK, fine. We all have our database problems now and then. My problem isn’t with the people at Twitter, though their Jack and Jill Magazine attitude toward their own failures must even get on their fans’ nerves sometimes:

No, my problem is with the slobbering fanboys and fangirls who are basing their monumentally pointless lives around it.

An exaggeration, you say? Let’s look again at Mashable, whose Twitter fandom remains unabated. On Monday, they posted the horrible “HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive“  by Elliott Kosmicki, which recommends using Twitter to accomplish various important tasks. A few of his most ridiculous:

• Manage to do lists (“Next time you’re telling your followers what you ate for lunch, you can also make a note to call the cute waitress you met while you were there.” Yes, I’m sure she’ll be impressed when you tell her the story of how you twittered yourself a to-do note about her.)
• Set a timer (Be sure and use it for really important things, like “remember to feed the baby”. And what device are you using to access Twitter anyway? Does it not have a built-in clock?)
• Get your flight information (Are you really going to depend on Twitter to help you get to the airport on time? If so, you deserve to miss that plane.)
• Track your expenses (Sounds like a solid plan. I’m sure the security is top-notch.)
• Get news alerts (Because you can never have enough news alerts. Hey, have they found Caylee yet?)
• Track packages (“If you’re like me and spend too much time tracking your latest Amazon order…” No, thankfully, I am nothing like you.)

Elliott isn’t the only offender, of course. In fact he’s not even close to the worst. Take Darren Rowse of the execrable Problogger.net (How to make your blog stand out? “Pick a unique topic”). Darren smelled the money and started a Twitter-specific site, the atrociously-named Twitip.com. Are these people unaware of the meaning of the word “twit”, or is there some type of irony involved?

The titles of the posts tell an ugly tale of pointlessness: 

• How to Target and Attract High Quality Twitter Followers from Your Blogging Niche (because we don’t just want ordinary readers, we want “high-quality niche eyeballs”) 
• Would you say what you say on Twitter if it was a Real Life Face to Face Interaction? (What would you say if I suggested you had no social skills?) 
• Helping others leads to Twitter Success (which contains the odious terms “Twitterating” and “Twitternation”)
• Using your Blog to Promote Twitter, (“Twitterverse”, “Tweeple”)
• The Quest for 5000 – How many Followers are Enough
• And the question on all our minds, Does The Way You Twitter Cause You Stress?.

There are so many more examples of sites like this, but my brain hurts already. So in summation: if you find yourself acting anything like these people, please seek help. And please don’t tweet about it.

Why is Mashable Obsessed with Twitter?

If you’ve read this blog before, you know I’m no fan of Twitter, the over-hyped tin can on a string of the 21st Century.

But I’ll admit it’s got its place. Yes, I’ve even got an account. I have a handful of friends who post the occasional useful or interesting update – although they would have been better served by emailing or blogging. Still, it is a rapidly-growing part of the current web landscape. As such, Twitter certainly deserves to be covered by a site specializing in the latest developments in social media.

But Mashable.com takes this to a ridiculous extreme. Mashable is one of the most successful blogs around, currently ranking number nine on Technorati’s top 100 blogs, The site’s tagline is “All That’s New on the Web”, and according to their “About” page: “[...] Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Networking news. With more than 5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web.”

As a follower of such things, I duly subscribed to their feed several months ago, and have found a number of useful posts on various new media topics. But over time, I’ve noticed an increasingly specific focus. Take a look at these recent Mashable posts from the last week or so, and see if you can spot the trend:

Twitter Meltdown Not a Hack
How to Destroy Your Twitter Brand in Minutes
Twhirl Updates: Will You Dump TweetDeck?
How Should President Obama Use Twitter?
Do What Twitter Can’t: Cash In On Your Twitter Stream
Twitter API Gets Rate Limit; Will It Hurt App Growth?
40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Top FriendFeed Tips for Twitter Users
Another Presidential Transition: @TheWhiteHouse on Twitter
9 Ways Twitter Can Help in the Real World
European Companies Don’t Like Twitter. Should They?
HOW TO: Use Twitter on the Go

I’m expecting “How Twitter Can Achieve Middle East Peace and Make You a Sandwich” any minute now.

For every ten Twitter-related pieces, there is approximately one about Digg, one about Facebook, one about Google, etc.
 
So what explains the site’s transformation into “All Twitter All the Time“? Twitter is growing at an amazing rate (though it still only claims about 2-3% of the user base of Facebook). Perhaps founder Pete Cashmore and company see their own “monetization” strategy for Twitter, before the service itself has even made a dime?

To his credit, Cashmore did write a post called “Should Tech Blogs Shut Up About Twitter?” on January 11th, even including the self-deprecating Digg screenshot reproduced above. In the post Cashmore asked his readers: “should tech blogs, including this one, shut up about Twitter?”. The poll results sent a clear message:

Should Tech Bloggers Cover Twitter News More, Less or the Same Amount?
More 10% (115 votes)
Less 58% (661 votes)
Same Amount 32% (366 votes)

The commenters on this poll were after my own heart. For example:

“One can only get so much twitter news. its not too hard to figure out how to increase followers or do this or that. Its a 140 characters for crying out loud”
“Some team of people or single tweeter came up with a neat integration for the Twitter API… AWESOME! it happens 3 times a day.”
“How about a weekly twitter roundup if you must write about it?”
“YES PLEASE. Make it stop.”

Personally, I left Cashmore a comment commending him for noticing the oversaturation and being willing to listen to his audience.

However, in the two weeks since, Mashable’s Twitter noise has only gotten louder and increasingly irrelevant.

So what didn’t Cashmore and company understand about those results? Why ask your readers what they want if you’re going to ignore the results?

Two posts about a single Twitter user cancelling his account, complete with screenshots of his final updates? Come on, Pete. You’ve got a huge platform from which to speak. Don’t waste it.