Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

News Outlets Duped by 'World's Oldest Twitterer" PR Stunt

by Warren Riddle on May 18, 2009 at 11:48 PM

Last week, in the midst of the current Twitter media frenzy (please, please, never let us hear Barbara WaWa or Oprah mention Twitter again), several news outlets glamorized the appearance of the world's oldest Twitterer, 104-year-old Ivy Bean.

According to the UK TechCrunch, the reporters should have done a little more actual reporting. The entire charade appears to have been a publicity stunt orchestrated by the Best Buy tech support service Geek Squad in order to attract attention to its "Silver Surfer's Day," which celebrates seniors on the Web. Supposedly enlisted by Ms. Bean to help her join the social networking scene, the Squad's Martin Dix, and his amazing beard, effused praise, saying "It's brilliant to help someone as inspirational as Ivy." Puke. Her retirement home also seems to have played a role, as it previously helped her set up a Facebook account and posted updates for her so that she could be the "Oldest Person on Facebook."

We're genuinely disappointed in this ruse, as we were really hoping Willard Scott's awesomely incoherent centenarian birthday wishes would follow Ms. Bean's Twitter lead. For now, we'll just have to make do with Courtney Love's raving tweets and their disjointed hilarity. [From: The Telegraph and TechCrunch]

Tags: geeksquad, microblogging, prstunts, stunts, top, twitter

Comments

1

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular