Twitter’s Noto has a #DMfail moment
IT’S WHAT every senior company official dreads doing – pressing the send button on a tweet that should have been a direct message.
Twitter finance chief Anthony Noto had his awkward oops moment when he accidentally tweeted a message that he intended to send privately. The presumed subject of the tweet? A potential acquisition by Twitter.
“I still think we should buy them. He is on your schedule for Dec 15 or 16 — we will need to sell him. i have a plan,” Noto’s message read.
The errant tweet set off a wave of speculation as to which company Noto was targeting, although few solid theories developed.
Noto quickly deleted the tweet, but not before a few sharp-eyed observers took screenshots.
The incident shows that even top members of Twitter’s executive team, who are on a mission to better explain the company’s product potential to Wall Street, sometimes have trouble using the service. The slip-up is so common that it has a name — a “DM fail”, for “direct message fail”.
Other DM Fails include:
■ In 2010, distinguished economist Nouriel Roubini trashed Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal in an “off the record” tweet, which was clearly meant to be a direct message.
■ US Congressman Anthony Weiner fell from grace after broadcasting an intimate photo of his boxer shorts on Twitter in 2011. He quit his seat.
■ BBC2 Newsnight editor Ian Katz caused outrage last year when he dubbed shadow cabinet member Rachel Reeves “boring, snoring” in a post-interview tweet.