Twitter and the Twits
File under, you just can't make stuff like this up.
There are lots of people out there using Twitter. Lots of people letting lots of other people know they've had breakfast, flossed, taken the bus to work, are at their desk, etc, etc. Fine.
We have the Twitter feed into facebook which a bunch of people seem to use as well. Right on the notifications page, again, bathroom breaks, commentary on the women's washroom in the Hamburg train station (no, really!), etc. Fine.
Fine, except for one tiny little problem.
We've all seen the stories about people calling in sick and posting party pictures on Facebook. My best friend over at York University tells me students come in with sad stories about mom dying last week while on their MySpace/Facebook page, we have current "tell your mom I loved the dinner last night" postings.
And now we have TWITter entertainment in the VC world.
A guy wants to come by and pitch his idea. No problem, come by Tuesday at 3p. Ok, very cool, so excited to meet you, heard so many things about you, amazing firm you have, etc, etc.
Twitter entry:
"Is relieved to have finally, gotten one of these asshole VCs to meet with me on Tuesday, stay tuned, gotta pucker up for this clown."
Then we have CEOs using TWITter to post "getting sick of the brain dead board members trying to make me do paperwork"
I think we need to update the list of things we tell our children. Instead of don't run with the scissors, we should have early discussions about the send and post it buttons.
Be careful out there.
"Is relieved to have finally, gotten one of these asshole VCs to meet with me on Tuesday, stay tuned, gotta pucker up for this clown."
Thanks for the laugh. Can you stream that meeting next Tuesday?
Posted by: Craig | November 28, 2007 at 13:14
For more than a minute I was afraid this post was about me ;-)
Posted by: Jeremy Wright | November 28, 2007 at 15:20
LOL, surely it makes the VC / portfolio company relationship more transparent, even if that wasn't the intention.
Posted by: Farhan Lalji | November 29, 2007 at 05:36
Excellent post, it reminds me that even though I'm a techie, I probably do have more business smarts than some people...
Maybe we should require that all emails and posts sit in the outbox for a minimum of 5 minutes before they are sent... but then you would have to care about the impact of your words and actions.
think twice, speak once.
Posted by: Steve | November 29, 2007 at 11:19
I would be curious to see if he's a good enough actor to completely hide that attitude in a face-to-face. Maybe I'm just a naive techie, but it seems like insincerity that extreme always leaks out somehow...
Posted by: Pete Warden | November 29, 2007 at 16:22
That's a hoot, really people who think their online lives are sorted into watertight compartments ought to read articles like the Big Page of SEO and Google Trust Rank - http://www.tuelz.com/big-seo.html
A friend also recently explained to me just how (scarily) much a script can extract about one's life just from Tweets posted on Twitter... user beware, indeed!
All success
Dr.Mani
Posted by: Dr.Mani | December 01, 2007 at 01:40
Wait, you mean people can *find stuff about you on the Internet* and relate it to, y'know, real life? 'Scuse me, I have to go revise a bunch of blog posts ...
Heh. Twits indeed. Great post.
Posted by: MarkDM | December 01, 2007 at 14:50
That's why I post things like, "Waiting for 70 critical updates to install, so I can go to the next site," or some sort of disclaimer after my tweets that says I'm pretty much stuck where I am until the current lengthy job is done. If my management sees my stuff, at least they'll know I'm doing something, and why I can't start something else while I wait for something to finish.
Wow, Twitter as a time-tracker...that might make me stop using it!
Posted by: MiniMage | December 02, 2007 at 15:48