UK Man Arrested And Banned From Airport For Twitter Joke About Blowing Up An Airport

from the careful-who-you-joke-with dept

A few weeks ago, I was flying with my wife somewhere, and as we passed through security, a TSA agency took my wife's shoes and asked if he could run a separate test on them. A little while later, he came back and asked if she had another pair of shoes, saying that hers had "failed the test." It was around 5am, and neither of us were completely awake and we were both really confused, and trying to figure out how her shoes could have failed any sort of test (could she have stepped in some sort of mud that set off a test?!?) or if she had packed another pair of shoes, when the TSA guy started laughing, saying he was just joking and "you were supposed to protest!" Apparently, it was all a big joke. It wasn't that funny. And, of course, we've been told over and over again that this kind of joking is only allowed to go in one direction.

Krubuntu points us to the news of a guy in the UK who found himself arrested and banned for life from an airport after posting a message on Twitter that read: "Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" This was in response to the airport closing due to snow, and the guy realizing he was supposed to fly from there a week later. Now, clearly, this was an ill-advised Twitter message. And, at the very least, I don't begrudge police from at least doing a quick check to make sure that it wasn't serious, but to then arrest him under the Terror Act, interrogate him for seven hours, threaten him with further charges and ban him for life from the airport? At some point you have to think that the response has gone too far as well. Yes, the post was in poor taste, but at some point law enforcement people should recognize when it was just a frustrated person making an ill-advised joke and move on.

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A Case That Has It All: Kim Kardashian, Twitter, Libel, Cookie Diets... And The New FTC Sponsorship Rules

from the i-want-a-cookie dept

Oh boy. Here's a fun one. You had to expect that there would be more defamation lawsuits about Twitter following the first one involving Courtney Love, but this one is quite impressive, considering of all the twists and turns that must be followed. It involves some company promoting something called "The Cookie Diet" (which appears to be exactly what you would think) suing Kim Kardashian for libel. If you don't keep up with pop culture, Kim Kardashian is one of those people famous for being famous. The details of the lawsuit, though, are somewhat complex, and it's difficult to figure out who to side with in this trainwreck in progress (and, yes, it seems pretty likely that the whole thing is a publicity stunt for all involved, but that doesn't mean it's not worth covering).

So, basically, the story is that this "cookie diet" supposedly has some fans in Hollywood, and a variety of media have covered the story. Some of those media reports claimed that Kardashian (among many others) were fans of the diet. The Cookie Diet people -- like you would expect -- have a page on their website that links to news coverage, including a story (which they had nothing to do with) that said Kardashian used the diet. At some point, they also sent Kardashian's publicist a box of the cookies.

At some point towards the end of last year, Kardashian saw the link on the website and got upset, posting two Twitter messages saying the following:

• "Dr. Siegal's Cookie Diet is falsely promoting that I'm on this diet. NOT TRUE! I would never do this unhealthy diet! I do QuickTrim!"
• If this Dr. Siegal is lying about me being on this diet, what else are they lying about? Not cool!"

After that, her lawyers sent the Cookie Diet people a letter demanding that it remove the link to the story. It's unclear on what legal grounds the demand was made, as the diet company insists it had nothing to do with the story, did not supply the information and, in fact, had no knowledge that Kardashian had tried the diet. However, they did remove the link. It was only then that they noticed the Twitter messages and... then we get the lawsuit.

OK. So far we've already got some confusion about whether a link to a news article is actionable, combined with a Twitter libel claim. But then the story gets even more bizarre. You see, there's been a lot of talk lately about Kardashian being the most high profile client of some company that gets people to post sponsored Twitter messages. In fact, reports claim that some companies are paying her $10,000 per sponsored message. This may or may not be true, but if it is true, then the companies paying that money are likely getting seriously ripped off because they don't understand how Twitter works and how follower counts are grossly inflated.

So, what does this have to do with the cookies? Well, the cookie people are noting in the legal filing that Kardashian is paid to promote QuickTrim, but that she failed to note this. How does that become important? Well... you may recall last year's kerfuffle over the new FTC "guidelines" about paid endorsements online. While the cookie people don't specifically bring this up, it's certainly implied that Kardashian's paid sponsorship had something to do with her messages against the cookie people.

It's hard to see either side as being worth defending here, but sit back, grab a cookie and enjoy watching the legal arguments fly.

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NBA Player Fined For Sending A Happy Twitter Message Too Soon

from the seems-a-bit-pricey dept

We've noted that the NFL has instituted its own overly restrictive social media policy that limits how and when players can send Twitter messages, but I hadn't realized that the NBA had done something similar as well. Unfortunately, it looks like Brandon Jennings of the Milwaukee Bucks ran afoul of those rules and was fined $7,500 for a single Twitter message. What awful thing did he say? Well, he was actually just happy about a victory:

"Back to 500. Yess!!! "500" means where doing good. Way to Play Hard Guys."

Seems like the sort of thing the NBA should be encouraging. It's a nice connection with fans, who feel that they're getting in on some of the excitement from a player they like. So, what was the problem? Well, the NBA "rules" say no Twittering until after the media sessions are done after the game. So, basically, he was too anxious to spread the excitement to his fans. And this is fine-worthy? It's hard to make sense of a policy that tells players not to connect with fans, and not to let them in on the excitement.

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Rather Than Blaming Twitter, NY Police Using It To Track Gang Activity

from the good-for-them dept

We've seen way too many stories of law enforcement officials blaming online tools like Craigslist, rather than using them proactively to help fight crime. Luckily, it appears that more and more folks in law enforcement are smart enough to know better. Robert Ring alerts us to a story about how gangs in New York are using Twitter to communicate and coordinate, but rather than blaming Twitter, the NYC Police Department is using it as a handy tool to find out what's going on:

Investigators are monitoring the traffic in hopes of sweeping up gangbangers before the bloodshed - and searching Twitter after attacks for clues.

"It is another tool ... just like old phone records," a police source said. "We can go through them [messages] to track these guys."

Nice to see these tools being used properly by law enforcement, rather than yet another public freakout over the wrong thing.

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Label Exec Arrested For Not Using Twitter To Disperse Crowd At Mall To See Singer

from the what's-the-charge-there? dept

Peter Kafka has an odd story about an executive at Island Def Jam Recods, James Roppo, who was supposedly arrested for not using Twitter to get crowds to disperse at a Long Island mall, after they had gathered to see singer Justin Bieber:

Police arrested a senior vice president from Bieber's label, Island Def Jam Records, James A. Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating.

He was in custody Friday night, pending charges that could include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration, Smith said.

"We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message," Smith said. "By not cooperating with us we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."

Now, that's quite a charge to make: that by not following police orders to send out Twitter messages you were "obstructing government administration" or involved in "criminal nuisance." Of course, the case may be made even more difficult because, as Kafka notes, Bieber's Twitter account actually did warn people to leave. Still, it makes you wonder how they get "not Twittering on command" to stick as a crime.

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ESPN Writer Suspended From Twitter

from the careful-what-you-tweet dept

Earlier this year, we noted that ESPN had come out with rules on how its staff could (and could not) use Twitter. Apparently, Bill Simmons broke those rules, and has been suspended from Twitter for two weeks. His crime? Apparently calling radio station WEEI, a partner of ESPN, deceitful scumbags. That does seem a bit over the top, but why should ESPN have a say in how Simmons uses a totally unrelated service in which he speaks his mind? If he's going to say something dumb, isn't that his decision?

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Judge Says No Twittering From The Courtroom

from the keep-it-quiet dept

There have been many debates over whether or not it's appropriate to blog or Twitter from the courtroom -- in fact, just last week I attended a short conference at the US courthouse in San Francisco about how the court system is dealing with such things. While you might understand why it's barred for jury members or participants in the trial to use such things, it does seem a bit excessive for a judge to bar reporters from Twittering as well, but that's exactly what's happened. The judge ruled that it was a form of a "broadcast," which is prohibited (why broadcasts are prohibited is a separate topic for a separate day, though it doesn't really make any sense).

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It Doesn't Matter How Many Twitter URLs Are Malware... Only If People Are Clicking

from the misleading-with-stats dept

Security companies love using stats to make something appear to be a bigger problem than it really is. Take for example this claim that links to malware are "abundant" on Twitter. The problem is that this is totally meaningless. Because you only see the tweets of people you follow, if spammers are putting up malware links, it only matters if anyone's following them and then clicking on the links. The number of links that point to malware alone is meaningless, because one "spammer" could just post a ton of malware links, but that won't mean a thing if no one is following them. The real question should be how often are people getting malware because of clicks on Twitter. Unfortunately, that data isn't provided.

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Twitter Banning Satirical 'Fake' Versions Of Politicians?

from the that-would-be-unfortunate dept

It's certainly become popular on blogs and on Twitter to create "fake" satirical versions of various famous people. These are usually humorous (or they try to be) over-the-top representations of these celebrities. Usually, they are quite obvious, even to the point of saying that they are "the fake so-and-so" or clearly stating in the bio that this is fake. There should be no confusion around such things. However, a journalist in India who created a "fake" satirical Twitter profile for Indian politician Shashi Tharoor has found herself banned from Twitter without any explanation or chance to appeal. Now, obviously it is Twitter's right to decide whether or not to shut down certain accounts, but you would think with such an obviously fake profile that the company might be a bit more careful and, at the very least, communicate with the account holder about the issues with the account before just shutting it down.

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NFL Star Ochocinco Sets Up His Own Twitter-Based News Network

from the good-luck-NFL dept

Earlier this year, in talking about the changing nature of sports reporting, one of the things we mentioned was that you shouldn't count out players themselves as a part of that ecosystem, since they could now go direct to fans themselves, without having to talk through a reporter. Of course, sports leagues are scared to death of this concept, and we also noted that the NFL, among others, was seeking to limit how players were interacting with fans, with some teams even punishing players for being honest with fans.

However, with all those rules and guidelines, it seems the NFL didn't count on outspoken Bengals player Chad Ochocinco from taking things even further. Reader DEF was the first to alert us that Ochocinco has decided to set up his own Twitter-based reporting operation on goings on within the NFL, believing that via other players, he'll be able to get the real scoop and post the information faster and more accurately than any traditional "reporter." He says he's "knocking out the middleman."

And this is exactly the point we were making about how the media landscape is changing. People want relevant news and information in a format they find most useful. They don't care if it comes from a reporter, an athlete or the guy down the block. Yes, there are different levels of trust with who delivers the news, but reporters need to realize that they're not the only gatekeepers any more -- no matter how much they wish they were.

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No, Twitter Use Is Not Costing Companies Billions

from the stop.-now.-please. dept

Not this again. It happens with every new internet fad. Some company trying to sell something (filters, consulting, training, etc.) comes out with some study claiming that the new popular internet thingy is "costing x billions of dollars" because workers are using it for some amount of time per day. All of them work on the same basic principle. Figure out how much time people spend using the service, and multiply it by how much people make per hour, and then voila. Of course, this assumes (incorrectly) that every minute not working is "lost productivity." Of course, if that were true then coffee breaks, lunch breaks, sleep and many other things would also be "lost productivity." But, we all know that's ridiculous and that the truth is those things make people more productive by giving them a break here and there to recharge.

So, please, please, please don't believe the latest ridiculous study coming out of the UK claiming that Twittering employees are costing UK businesses £1.83 billion. It's the same ridiculousness, calculating that the average worker spends about 40 minutes on Twitter, but making no effort to figure out if that actually negatively impacts productivity -- just assuming that it means 40 minutes of "lost productivity." How many times do we need to repeat that time does not equal productivity before these companies stop coming out with such bogus studies?

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Hollywood Can't Handle Anyone Connecting With Fans... So It Contractually Tries To Stop Them

from the suicide-in-the-making dept

The whole "connect with fans" and give them a "reason to buy" mantra fits with pretty much any kind of content creation -- and absolutely works in the movie industry. We've talked, for example, about the amazing job that Clerks writer/director/filmmaker/actor/funny guy (he recently said he doesn't like being described as "just" a filmmaker) Kevin Smith does in connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy. Lately, a lot of that has been happening via Twitter, which is great. Except in the minds of the Hollywood studios. Apparently, lots of new studio contracts are including anti-Twitter language, forbidding writers, actors and others from chatting too much about the movies they're working on. Some just talk about "confidentiality breaches" while others forbid saying anything disparaging.

This is the typical Hollywood "control everything" mindset, but totally goes against the way fans want to connect, these days, and will do a lot more to harm these movies than help. People want to follow their favorite actors/directors on the set and know what's going on. It helps get them more excited about the movies, well before they otherwise might have. Shutting them down, just because some studio execs, who have probably never used Twitter, are too paranoid to recognize it as a great promotional vehicle, seems backwards and shortsighted.

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Really @NHL? Is It Necessary To Fill The Whole Background With Legalese?

from the read-the-fine-print dept

So, with the NHL season now under way this week, the NHL is running a twitter promotion where you have to guess the winner of each of the games this Saturday. Tweet the correct winners to @NHL and you could win yourself a trip for two to a regular season game of your choosing. The promotion is fine and all, but what I was surprised at was the ridiculous background image that is on the NHL twitter page: an image of the entire legal "Official Rules" in both English and French.



Seriously? Whose idea was it to fill the entire background with legalese? It is barely even legible. A simple link would have sufficed, but it almost seems like a childish response to a lawyer's request to put these rules up on their twitter page. Then again, in reading through the extensive rules, I was reminded of my favorite part of any sweepstakes in which Canadians take part, the math question.

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Social Media Allows For Honest Expression... Don't Stifle It

from the don't-tweet-that dept

There's saying that's been making the rounds lately, in talking about journalism, saying that "trust is the new objectivity." The idea is that if you're trustworthy, even if you have a bias, people are more interested in what you have to say. But, of course, that doesn't just apply to journalists. It pretty much applies to everyone, in any business. People are tired of fake connections. They want real connections. That's what connecting with fans is really all about. If you're honest and open, you build trust. And that trust is valuable. So it's difficult to understand why so many organizations work so hard to stifle that kind of openness. We saw it recently with the Washington Post's new social media guidelines, and we've seen it elsewhere as well, such as with sports teams.

For example, JJ sends in the news that the Jets benched a player for a Twitter message, despite the fact that the team is actually more open to having its players use social media to connect with fans. Hearing this, I figured it must be quite a Twitter message -- seeing as there was just a big controversy over a Redskins player who insulted fans via Twitter, calling them "dimwits" and saying they shouldn't give their opinion on the team since they work at McDonalds. But what did the Jets player say that was so troubling?

"1 play in the 1st Half, 4 plays in the 2nd half,.... A bit disappointed about my playing time but very happy and satisfied about the win."

I'm honestly having a hard time seeing how that's a benchable offense. He was entirely honest, and not accusatory. He was happy that the team won, but wished he could have been involved in more plays. He's a professional athlete, and such sentiments are pretty standard. It actually seems nice that he's sharing with fans in that way. He didn't seem to be complaining or disparaging the team or anyone. He just noted that personally he was "a bit disappointed" that he wasn't more involved.

The fact is, the internet lets people connect with others -- either one-to-one or one-to-many in much more direct and personal ways than ever before in the past. Yes, that has some risks and downsides, but on the whole, that openness and connection builds trust and a relationship, and that's important. It makes no sense to try to stifle such communications, whether its a journalist or a professional athlete.

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Kevin Smith: Connects Again, Says Pirates Lead To Converts

from the indeed dept

A few months back, I wrote about how director Kevin Smith (who's most well known for Clerks, but has done plenty of other stuff as well) is showing how the old CwF + RtB formula works in the movie business as well. Smith has gone above and beyond (and crazy far beyond that) in connecting with his fans in all sorts of ways. Beyond just making cool movies, he has a fun (mostly) weekly podcast, a blog (which he doesn't use as much any more), web forums and he regularly does Q&A sessions that are somewhat legendary and hilarious (check YouTube).

Recently, he jump onto the Twitter bandwagon and hasn't looked back (it explains why the blog has gone mostly silent), and he interacts with all sorts of fans that way. Last week, he announced that for Labor Day, he would do a 24-hour Twitter marathon, taking and answering questions from fans. It started up around 8am Monday morning, and was fun to follow along with (including some back and forth with Ben Stiller, who lives in Kevin's neighborhood, and has a house that Kevin wants...). Yet another example of connecting with fans -- though, every here and there he interspersed it with links to things to buy, such as a book made from some "best of" moments from the podcast, called Shootin' the Sh*t with Kevin Smith.

Smith seems to have the whole CwF+RtB thing down cold -- and has for many years. But, given all of that, I had no idea what his opinion was on the question of "piracy." While he notes, at one point, that Disney will own the rights to his movies forever, someone asks "How much money do you think your projects have lost to piracy?" to which Kevin responds:

See, I think "How many more converts did I get from piracy?"

Bingo. The smart creator these days looks to use "piracy" to his advantage. Smith has done that and more. Hell, we all wish that our favorite creators made plenty of money any time anyone viewed/heard/experienced their content -- but that's not the way the world works. So why not figure out ways to use what the world is doing to your advantage? Many have figured it out -- and yet the industry bigwigs and lawyers continue to insist it's impossible. Oh, and I'm looking forward to (finally) seeing Kevin Smith do a Q&A live later this year as part of his fall tour -- for which I was happy to give him money, once again, disproving Hollywood lawyers insistence that fans just want everything for free. Luckily, Smith doesn't appear to be listening to the lawyers in his neighborhood, and it seems like he's better off for it.

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Pointless Babble Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

from the yer-doing-it-wrong dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting some silly study claiming that 40% of Twitter messages are "pointless babble," confirming the standard critique from non-Twitter users of the uselessness of Twitter as a whole. Of course, there are all sorts of problems with this that have been raised by a bunch of people, starting with the methodology, but a bigger point is that the only really "pointless babble" is in trying to determine how much of Twitter is pointless babble. That's because Twitter doesn't work as a broadcast mechanism, whereby you have to pay attention to all of it. It's based on who you follow. If there's too much "pointless babble," there's a simple solution: follow other people. As Sean Garrett sarcastically notes, "62% of all phone conversations deemed "useless babble" say researchers."

But the real issue is that "pointless babble" is very much in the eye of the beholder. What these researchers consider to be pointless babble (things like someone tweeting that they were going out to eat) can actually be quite useful and valuable. I still tell the story of how just such a "pointless babble" of a Tweet resulted in me getting a chance to meet someone I'd wanted to meet for a while, and I've had many other "pointless babble" tweets come in handy in doing business deals or meeting other people as well. What's "pointless babble" to some can be incredibly useful to others.

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Beat Reporting, Fair Use, Twitter And Free Expression: Mashing Up Some Thoughts

from the what's-happening-here dept

There are a few stories that have been getting some buzz this week for separate reasons, that when combined, paint an interesting picture of our current media landscape. The first was that some baseball reporters picked up on the current debate over fair use when it comes to reporting, aggregating and sharing the news. I think the focus on "fair use" in these stories is a bit misleading. Most people view web-based communications as a part of a conversation. And if you're talking about an interesting story you see, you don't tell that person I can only read you some of it because more would be illegal. You discuss what you think is relevant. That's just a part of the conversation. Holding back the natural flow of dialogue by way of copyright law seems like a clear limit on free expression and free speech.

One of my favorite beat writers, Pete Abraham for the Journal News, picked up on this story and encapsulated what I believe is the love-hate notion that many newspaper journalists have in these situations:

I'm usually flattered if some other blog links to my work. I figure anything that brings more readers here has to be good. But for every responsible blogger out there, there are other who cut and paste the work of others and either pass it off as their own or barely credit the author.

If you know the solution, contact the newspaper industry because you will be a well-paid consultant. The problem will soon be this: If newspapers decide they can't afford beat writers, where will that information come from? Somebody has to get on the plane, go to Toronto and ask the questions.

There are two separate issues Pete raises here, and I'd like to address both. The first is the question of "bad actors" in the space. These are the so-called "parasites" that the Marburgers discuss. The problem is that there's really no problem at all here. No one seems able to point out any such real "parasite" site that actually gets any significant traffic. Most readers who actually follow these issues figure out pretty quickly to go straight to the source itself. In fact, that's how I first discovered Pete's own blog many years ago. I saw him quoted in three separate places within a week, and thought "hmm, this is someone I need to follow." And even though I grew up in NY, I'd never even heard of The Journal News (apparently it publishes north of NY City in Westchester). But these days, I trust Pete's reporting over anyone else's and go to his site first for any news about the Yankees -- because he's built up that reputation, works hard to increase value and (most important of all) has done an amazing job cultivating community, mostly via his amazing blog.

This is a point that we've tried to bring up multiple times before. Many old schoolers view the newspaper business as being in the business of delivering content to the masses. But that's never actually been true. The newspaper business has always been in the community building business. It would bring together a community around local news and then sell their attention to advertisers. The problem today is that there are so many different places to get a community, that the newspapers have competition.

And, in NY, when it comes to the Yankees, there's a lot of competition. But by really building a community and cultivating it, Pete stands out above everyone else. The NY Times beat writer for the Yankees is a guy named Tyler Kepner. He's great as well, and you can get much of the same information that Pete posts on Kepner's blog (or Twitter feeds), but for some reason, Pete's blog feels more comfortable. The NY Times' blog feels... sterile. You can see it as you start to dig into the comments on both blogs. Sure, there are some crazy folks and some classic trolls (and, you know, Red Sox fans), but there's real community building going on in the comments on Pete's blog posts (and Pete participates at times as well). Plus, they've held real world get-togethers (such as at the Yankee's AAA minor league games).

And while I'm obviously not privy to the traffic numbers, I would guess that from the comments alone, it's pretty clear that Pete's Yankee blog for The Journal News of Westchester gets a lot more traffic than Kepner's Yankee blog for the gold standard NY Times. The content is often frighteningly similar, but the community makes a huge difference. Building up a community is a skill that journalists (and newspapers) need to learn. Whether on purpose or not, Pete's been quite good at it.

And, from that we get to Pete's second point: questioning how newspapers, such as his own, can continue paying for the expense of beat writers. Here there are a few different potential answers. Pete has attracted a large enough community, that if the Journal News hasn't figured out how to profit from him and the "expense" of having him on payroll as a beat writer, then they're doing something wrong. But even if a newspaper couldn't afford him, with the community that Pete has built up, if the Yankees would allow him to be an independent beat writer, I'd bet he could bring in a fair amount of money that way. Team Pete up with a business guy and a tech guy, and go to town. Everyone would benefit. The Yankees would get more awesome coverage and a huge community of vocal, loyal Yankee fans. Pete would still have a job. And us fans would still have a great place to gather virtually.

But there's a separate issue as well. I've already mentioned some of the overlap between Pete and Tyler. But those are only two of the beat writers. There are also Yankee beat writers from the NY Post, the NY Daily News, Newsday, the New Jersey Record, WFAN, MLB.com and perhaps some others as well. I follow a bunch of their blogs and Twitter accounts, and there's a tremendous amount of overlap. I am not saying to just dump them all and have a single beat writer. But at some point you do have to wonder about why it makes sense to have so many reporters effectively reporting the exact same thing.

Also, there are other models that are coming out for paying for reporters. Mark Cuban has talked about actually having the sports teams pay the newspaper for coverage -- which certainly horrifies some reporters, but is yet another potential model, since the teams themselves benefit from the coverage. On top of that, we're seeing nationally focused publications -- such as ESPN and Sports Illustrated -- snap up lots of top reporters. Hell, just this week Sports Illusrated hired away another favorite of mine, Joe Posnanski. And while they don't do so yet, you could see national media like that add beat reporters as well.

Of course, if they're going to do that, they shouldn't do silly things like tell their reporters they have to limit their Twitter usage, as ESPN recently did.

Then, you have the fact that there are many impressive fan-driven blogs adding to the ecosystem as well. I'm certainly not suggesting that the fan-driven blogs replace the beat reporters, but it is an addition that fills in a lot more information and insight. I get a ton of insightful analysis about the Yankees via River Avenue Blues, a blog run by three fans, who are knowledgeable, thoughtful and insightful when it comes to the state of the Yankees. And, sometimes they get or break news as well. While these fanblogs and the beat reporters mostly have a pretty good relationship, you'd think that those could be leveraged even more, to enable the creation of more great content that drives more community. Teams should allow more access to the top fan blogs, and the news publications should be teaming up with some of the best fanblogs as well to leverage their insight and traffic for their own business models.

And, finally, let's not forget the fact that the athletes themselves suddenly have the ability to go direct as well. While the NFL is trying to crack down on players using Twitter, the fact is players have more direct channels to reach fans and provide information as well. Again, this is not a replacement for beat reporters, but does add to the ecosystem as well. And, at times, those players are breaking news themselves.

So you have a situation where there is more information than ever before out there about sports teams. There are more ways for fans to convene and converse with each other, with professional reporters and with the athletes themselves. Technology has made it cheaper and easier to do all of this -- and the ability to bring together a community of folks has not diminished even slightly. If you can't make money with all of that, then you've got bigger problems.

However, since Pete insists that anyone who has an answer to how to keep funding beat reporters employed can make a living as a well-paid consultant, he should tell his bosses at Gannett to contact us. We're more than happy to help put together a strategic plan for how to keep Pete and others gainfully employed.

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And Of Course: Twitter Sued For Patent Infringement In Texas

from the where-else? dept

This should hardly be a surprise, but with Twitter being so popular lately, it was only a matter of time until it was targeted in patent infringement lawsuits. At the very least, the company suing them appears to (a) actually be based in Texas and (b) have a product on the market. But... that doesn't make TechRadium's lawsuit against Twitter any more reasonable or sensible. Take a look at the patents in question:

• 7,130,389: Digital notification and response system
• 7,496,183: Method for providing digital notification
• 7,519,165: Method for providing digital notification and receiving responses

Read through the claims on each of these patents and try not to gag on the obviousness of all three. If you picked any competent programmer (or, should we say, one who is "skilled in the art") and discussed messaging systems, this is pretty much what any of them would develop. There's nothing particularly unique or special in what's described in these patents. And, now, unfortunately, Twitter needs to waste time and money defending itself for doing something (ahem) obvious.

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Sued Over Twitter Message? Can You Defame Someone In 140 Characters Or Less?

from the sue-first,-ask-questions-later dept

Tom writes in to alert us that a woman in Chicago has been sued for defamation by the company that manages her apartment over a Twitter message. The message she put on Twitter read:

"Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

And, rather than address a concern of one of their residents, the company brought out the lawyers, and sued for over $50,000. A little investigation reveals that the woman had all of 20 followers, which makes you question just how much actual damage was done by this message.

Still, for my money, the best single paragraph/statement about Horizon Group Management has to be the following one, in the Chicago Sun-Times, quoting Jeffrey Michael, speaking for Horizon Group (and a member of the family that runs it):

"We're a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization," he said, noting that the company manages 1,500 apartments in Chicago and has a good reputation it wants to preserve.

I'm curious as to how being a "sue first, ask questions later kind of organization" meshes with having "a good reputation it wants to preserve." I'd argue that (1) suing a tenant of a meaningless tweet (and drawing much more attention to the complaint) and (2) claiming that you're a "sue first, ask questions later kind of organization" in the national media are going to do a hell of a lot more damage to any "good reputation" (if it existed in the first place) than some random woman with 20 followers bitching about mold in her apartment.

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White House Bans Twitter?

from the communication? dept

Well this is odd. Twitter was one of the many tools that President Obama used to help build up a strong base of supporters, and the White House has its own Twitter feed that is quite popular. Yet, reader Ben points out that White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has now admitted that Twitter is blocked from White House computers. Wonder who's updating the official feed, then... Apparently this isn't actually a new thing. A couple months ago, it came up in another press conference, and it came out that only a small number of "new media" folks are allowed to have access to Twitter from the White House. Someone ought to let the White House IT staff know that it's easy to update Twitter via SMS from your phone... Either way, makes you wonder if only the media communications people in the White House are allowed to use telephones, too.

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