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Tipjoy's experiment in virality on Twitter: Happy birthday Shaq
- ivankirigin 18y agoThis is not to be confused with Shaq's virility, which from his tweets is undoubtedly impressive.
- brk 18y agoNeat/funny idea, but Shaq doesn't need my money. Celebrity obsession is a foolish passion that I've never understood.
- ivankirigin 18y agoIf he takes interest, he'll undoubtedly use it to buy the Twitter team lunch or give it to a charity. We also hear he's a really good tipper :-D Have you seen his tweet stream? He keeps it more real than most regular people I know on Twitter, e.g. http://betaworks.com/post/80027230/shaq-keepin-it-so-real-its-scary http://betaworks.com/post/80027230/shaq-keepin-it-so-real-it...
- aditya 18y agoHere's the back story: http://sesquipedalis.blogspot.com/2009/02/finally-use-for-twitter.html http://sesquipedalis.blogspot.com/2009/02/finally-use-for-tw... (via @timoreilly) Definitely keepin it real.
- wallflower 18y ago> Celebrity obsession is a foolish passion that I've never understood. I think it's a form of escapism. Not everyone does it all the time but enough people do it that it's acceptable.
- jfornear 18y agoThis reminds me of high school when people would safety pin dollar bills to the birthday boy/girl's shirt... but 'web 2.0'. Great idea. Probably the best marketing ploy since Burger King's Facebook Whopper campaign, and Shaq was the perfect choice.
- ivankirigin 18y agoWe were asked to take down the site. Sigh...
- alaskamiller 18y agoCan you say who? Shaq or Twitter?
- ivankirigin 18y agoNeither. Someone from the Phoenix Suns, note: http://twitter.com/tipjoy http://twitter.com/tipjoy We'll try to move it to be a charitable angle, rather than direct cash.
- tlrobinson 18y agoDid the site even mention the Suns anywhere, or do they literally own Shaq?
- ivankirigin 18y agoI'm actually curious about how that business works. We had a picture (remixed from Shaq's twitter profile page http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq ), with him in a Suns jersey. Presumably he has people both for his personal brand and also those for the team he leads. I doubt the Suns would care much about, for example, a pirate copy of his music or movies. One thing is pretty clear: Shaq is authentic on twitter, but the account is managed and monitored by a number of interested parties. That is obvious when you think of him like any other brand, but has left me a bit jaded about it.
- auston 18y agohttp://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ/statuses/1285621312 http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ/statuses/1285621312
- ivankirigin 18y ago
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- nihaar 18y agoyikes... http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ/status/1285621312 http://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ/status/1285621312
- rwebb 18y agowhoops. http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq http://twitter.com/the_real_shaq : "Stay away fr. Happy Bday Shaq site. Nothin ta do wit me. Shudderdown. Shame shame All I want is friends, thank u all"
- jfornear 18y agoWhy whoops? Burger King's Whopper campaign got shut down by Facebook, but that doesn't mean it wasn't successful.
- swombat 18y agoFailed: http://twitter.com/tipjoy/status/1285537683 http://twitter.com/tipjoy/status/1285537683 "a representative from the Phoenix Suns asked us. I presume the gifting / money site is what they didn't like." Ouch. That sucks.
- tlrobinson 18y agoI have a strong distaste for using Twitter as a marketing tool, in particular "forced" viral marketing, as I call it (where you have to follow and/or tweet something in order to participate somehow... the "ViralTweets" software is the worst). The Shaq thing is kind of clever, but if someone I followed spammed me with more spammy things I'm very likely to unfollow them.