ColemanMedia Report

Co-workers at the Chicago office of Bogelsby, Bertelbahm, & Humperdink staged an impromptu Twittervention early Monday with traffic coordinator Danny McNeil after McNeil reportedly posted his 26th post on the popular micro blog in under an hour.  According to several of McNeil’s coworkers, the frequency and frivolousness of his posts forced them to intervene and urge McNeil to admit that he has a problem.  ”I check Twitter maybe once a week just to follow a few people, and all I get are Danny’s goddamn updates,” said co-worker Jeremy Brighton.  ”Like last week, I logged in to check out the latest from Shitmydadsays, and all I get is a play-by-play of Danny’s 12-hour Battlestar Galactica RPG session.  That show’s been off the air for like a year!”  According to witnesses, the Twittervention did not work as well as planned.  McNeil tweeted about the confrontation 17 minutes after it occurred.  Ed. Note: Senior Twitterverse Correspondent Erin Mikosz contributed to this article.

The blogosphere was abuzz early Tuesday after a recent round of financing by Derivative Capital valued popular micro-blog Twitter at just over 5 billion Retweets, dramatically topping earlier estimates of $250.17.  While the buzz seems to be mostly confusion over what exactly 5 billion Retweets actually means, most bloggers agree that the prognosis is good, despite Twitter’s inability to turn a profit thus far.  ”Technically a Retweet has absolutely no monetary value whatsoever,” said Moishe Malakai, lead blogger at Mashable.com.  ”But Twitter’s not concerned about making money, and they shouldn’t have to be.  Twitter as a business subsists entirely on buzz, popularity, and growth, not a sustainable revenue plan.  And so far they’ve done a bang-up job with that.  Besides, if someone named Derivative Capital places a big bet on you, you have to be doing something right.  Right?”

The Central Intelligence Agency announced late Friday that a new technology contract will allow the agency to instantly track criminals, suspects and ex-girlfriends within popular social networks Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.  The contract, with Seattle-based Visible Technologies, will allow agents to track any and all social networking activity of “persons of interest” secretely – without logging in or revealing their identities.  ”This is a huge leap forward in allowing us to stalk ex-girlfriends,” said CIA Director Leon Panetta.  ”Before we had to log in and send friend requests to find out what they were up to.  Most of the time they would just ignore or deny us.  But now I can track Peggy, Donna, and Gladys Steinberg without them knowing, and find out if they really hooked up with Kevin from senior gym class.”  Financial details of the contract were not released, but Panetta characterized the cost as “totally worth it.”

United States President Barack Obama has not yet confirmed Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s friend request on Facebook sent early last week, according to representatives of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Social Networking.  Ahmadinejad, who sent the request last Monday, has come under fire recently for reportedly blocking access to social networking sites Facebook and Twitter after his widely disputed presidential win in June.  ”Ahmadinejad gets a bad rap,” said Khemeni al Khemeni, a spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Social Networking.  ”He’s actually a very fun-loving, social guy, and very active on both Facebook and Twitter.  In fact, he’s summarily executed thousands of his own citizens for not accepting his friend requests.”  U.S. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated that President Obama has yet to receive Ahmadinejad’s request, largely because the Facebook Mobile app on his Blackberry has been “acting up lately.”

A report released this week by the Anderson School for the Statistically Obvious confirms that Internet users who regularly use online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are 24% more likely to use online social networks than those who currently don’t.  The report also points out that users of social media are 62% more likely to partake in “social” activities, such as exchanging emails, text messages, and writing reviews of “things that suck.”  ”Wow,” said Dan Determan, a media analyst at Omniworks Mediacom.  ”You mean to tell me that people on social networks are having conversations online?  Like talking to their friends online?  Who would have thought!  This totally validates the $1,695 we paid for this research!”  The report also revealed that people with eyes are 52.3% more likely to read content on social networks than those without.

Just hours after announcing their $850 million dollar acquisition of beloved online shoe retailer Zappos, Seattle-based Amazon.com confirmed that they will change Zappos’ business model from selling shoes to participating exclusively in social media marketing.  According to Amazon officials, the flood of media analysis from the blogosphere calling the purchase the “biggest social media deal of the decade” helped cement their decision.  ”We initially bought Zappos because they had one of the best customer service models we’ve ever seen,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.  ”They built their entire business on it.  But because everyone at Mediapost, Advertising Age and Brandweek kept pushing the social media angle, we have decided to prove them right, and turn one of the most successful online retailers into a misguided advertising case study.”