Task: Describe Twitter in exactly 140 characters.
Result: Like a “fun-sized” candy, life is made byte-sized, interaction relieved of character. Twitter is to conversation as porn is to making love.
OK, now it’s your turn.
[Inspired by Phil Baumann's Twitter Pitch in 140 Characters. Thanks Phil.]
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.
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:
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:
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.
