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CNN Acquires CNNBrk Twitter Account
- andr 18y agoGreat! That would just cause a flood of bulk Twitter name registrations.
- johnrob 18y agoTwitter accounts are not domain names. Right now, the hype is all about large follower accounts and how you get them by following followers of existing popular users. However, a follower is not worth as much as a website visitor, because they are passive. I know first hand that notification based content has very low response rates when compared to active content (search being the best example of active). So... the power of a great domain name is that people who type it into the browser are active. For example, if you have a good typo-squatted domain, you can get active visitors who, although mistyped the name of the desired website, are nonetheless interested in your content and are (relatively speaking of course) very likely to click on your ads.
- andr 18y agoYou are right in theory. In practice there are already tons of Twitter usernames squatted, and Twitter is not doing anything to manage those. The monetization of user names would only make the practice more popular.
- vaksel 18y agois this the first twitter account to be acquired?
- wallflower 18y agoCongratulations to him - I'm pretty sure 99% of his followers just auto-followed and had no idea it was not officially CNN. James Cox, the UK developer, in effect, created a wildly popular public announcement service by being the first and obscuring his officialness. Brief history of http://twitter.com/cnnbrk http://twitter.com/cnnbrk "With the advent of Twitter, especially when it still delivered to my cell phone (I’m in the UK), it seemed like the easiest way to solve that problem, and so @cnnbrk was born." January 1, 2007 "everyone - added CNN Breaking News to twitter. ev - great API! -- just do add cnnbrk and you'll get the alerts as they are sent out" -@imajes http://twitter.com/imajes/status/1963133 http://twitter.com/imajes/status/1963133 August 1, 2008 "I do indeed wield the power of their brand: if I posted right now that Bush is due to be impeached, or that Diet Coke really still contained cocaine - I think the repercussions would be unpleasant." http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/aug/01/thecnnbreakingnewstwitter http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/aug/01/thecnnbreaki... January 6, 2009 "You’ve mentioned that CNN has been in contact with you. Describe the nature of this contact. Have they given you their blessing? We’ve had a few conversations. Blessing is a difficult word in mainstream media, but certainly the guys over at CNN have done a lot to protect and help me." http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/the-twitter-cnn-breaking-news-bot-a-lesson-in-good-trademark-infringement/ http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/the-twitter-cnn-breaking-news-...
- tlrobinson 18y agoSo, is that why it hasn't been updated for 3 days?
- mahmud 18y agoYou have never been acquired have you? Intense talks followed by an underwhelming exchange of goods for money, and you turn around to see your baby relegated to irrelevance by the buyer, passed around between departments and neglected by everyone. You almost want to stick your neck back in and tell them what time she likes to nap, but the door is quickly shut and you're left to ponder what to do with your life :-(
- tlrobinson 18y agoWell, I assumed it was automated. Perhaps I assumed wrong.
- tsally 18y agoAwesome, acquired instead of sued. Personally I would have expected the later; acquiring the name seems like a rather progressive move.