

Sorry, Skittles, your prank offends me. I'm going to go buy me some Chuckles, stat. - technologizer
http://technologizer.com/2009/03/02/hey-skittles-get-off-of-my-cloud/

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michaelkeenan
Twitter is (among other things) a communication medium. To call an innovative
use of a communication medium "co-opting" it seems unfair to me; if
interesting memes didn't spread through it, it would be a failure. Evan
Williams noted in his TED talk that new, unexpected uses of Twitter are
exciting and welcome.

Do something remarkable, get remarked about. It seems an honest form of
marketing to me.

~~~
MoeDrippins
Agree. What other things is twitter, however?

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michaelkeenan
Apologies for the late reply, MoeDrippins; hopefully you'll see this if you
check out your comments list.

I originally wrote that Twitter was a communications medium. But then I
considered that people might be offended by Skittles on behalf of the Twitter
community, or Twitter the company, and in those ways, Twitter is more than
just a communication medium.

I think its importance as a communication medium is paramount.

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dimitry
"Actually, almost none of the conversation about the stuff has to do with any
of the things that make Skittles Skittles: It’s just folks mentioning Skittles
to get on the Skittles home page."

He clearly misses the point. They're mentioning Skittles and that's effective
brand building.

~~~
axod
Several of them seem to be mentioning Skittles to build their own 'brand' -
online persona/spamming/looking cool/etc

I'm really not sure having your brand associated with spam/abuse/people trying
to say idiotic+offensive things, is a good idea personally. It's like a
massive bait to get people to abuse your product.

The google serps are already filling up with links between "skittles" and
random abusive offensive stuff.

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mikeyur
I totally forgot about Skittles before I saw this, I went to the store today
and bought some. They are still awesome and taste like floor wax.

