Whose Side are you On? Southern Soul or Twitter?

[Stuart Cosgrove]

Trouble is brewing in Tweet Town.

In the 1959 film Tweet Dreams , after failing so many times to catch Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat suffers a nervous breakdown and goes to see a psychiatrist.

Quite apart from this terrible moment in Sylvester's emotional past, his lasting heritage and that off the flirtatious Tweety Pie are being challenged by a passing fad known as Twitter, a micro-blogging technology which is enjoying its brief summer in the sun

In a letter to developers using the Twitter APIs the company have said:

Hi,

Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own. How can we go about having you change your UI to better differentiate your offering from our own?

Thanks,


So there you have it - Tweetie Pie, TweetDeck and most 'ucnocomfortable' of all the R&B singer Tweet, who pre-dated Twitter by years are now on warning, that legal action may follow. I hate fads when they turn heavy on people - and come on all corporate, but I like southern soul singers.

..so, long live Tweet and those that sing with southern soul.

[ArkAngel]

Hi Twittter,

I'm uncomfortable with your use of the word Twit and the similarity to my own behaviour over many years. I have been distinguishing myself as a Twit or (the now trendy) Twat since long before you were falling over under the volume of traffic. The heavy shit you're pulling on poor littl' developers is pretty twatish but you're going to have to do better than that to better differentiate your offering from my own. Couldn't you plaster a few ads over my page? or hit me for a Pro version? How can we go about having you change your UI or behaviour to be a better class of twit, twat, t**t or corporate c**t?

Thanks for letting me get that off my ch**t

[Darcie]

I agree. I hate when brands get too big for their britches and try to bully people. Are Twitter losing what could be (in who knows what way) potential money makers to other UI's, probably, but these other clients have probably been key in helping them retain the success they've had(and Twitter doesn't have a money making plan yet).

You can't trademark any word in the dictionary and expect people to rebrand themselves because you said so.

Too far me thinks. Is the bird next?