Forget "Mad Men", now Bernbach is on Twitter

At the risk of declaring that Twitter has jumped the shark, now I've gotten an invitation to follow Bill Bernbach on Twitter, in a move probably inspired by the "Mad Men" twitterers. Bernbach seems confused by Google's new browser, Chrome, and is trying out the Avis "We try harder" slogan on anyone who will listen. Seeing Bernbach on board gave me the idea that maybe I should start impersonating David Ogilvy, but somebody already thought of that, and the Twitter D.O. even claims to be having dinner with Betty and Don Draper on Thursday night. Maybe I'll be Mary Wells. Anyway, this whole Twitter impersonating thing probably has jumped the shark. While I was putting together this post, I got an invitation to follow Dr. Benjamin Spock, who is following more than 700 people but hasn't posted a damn thing.

Do 'Mad Men' characters have time to Twitter?

It's time to spend a little quality time on the subject of whether all of these "Mad Men" characters showing up on Twitter are part of an AMC marketing stunt. I first became aware there was an @don_draper on Twitter from Alan Wolk, so I decided to follow him. He's elusive, as you might expect, and keeps popping out of the office for extended periods of time. Then, last night, I got an email that Peggy Olson was following me. Peggy is much more prolific on Twitter—work has been keeping her up at night. Pete Campbell, Bertram Cooper and a couple of other characters seem to be tweeting away too. When it was just Don Draper, I thought this was a late-summer time-waster. Now I'm not so sure, although, on the other hand, it isn't exactly in keeping with the series' slavish devotion to retro to embrace a newfangled online service like Twitter.

I've exposed my Twitter addiction

This week in the Social Media Insider, I have let it be known that I am a Twitter addict. Stop me before I tweet again!!! Best part is that the comments that are up so far read like an invitation to a 12-step meeting. Not that I would know about such things, but the way things are going, perhaps I soon will.

Metacafe makes David Wright $1082.01 richer

So the bidding for Ian Schafer's Twitter feed is over and the winner is an entity called Teametacafe (aka metacafe.com), paying over $1000 for the one month privilege to take over his Twitter profile page and replace his mug with some its assets, like maybe its logo. Wishing, once again, that I'd thought of that, but it's never too late is it? Still didn't get the first mover advantage though. Oh, right, what's the reference to New York Met David Wright? Schafer says he's giving the money to the David Wright Foundation.

Ian Schafer auctions Ian Schafer on Twitter

Saw this on Twitter and said to myself, "Why aren't I doing that?" What I saw is that Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer is auctioning off sponsorship to his Twitter feed on eBay. Opening bid is $400. Here's an excerpt from his blog, IanSchafer.com on what he's offering: "This one-month sponsorship includes replacing of the existing background image with the image(s) of your choice, as well as replacement of my handsome photo with another image of your choice (ie. brand logo)." He also says that "numerous journalists" follow him which I guess includes me, but, hey, it's been worth it. Without him, I'd never have gotten on to the big story of last week: Agency 3.0.

Looks like Twitter needs more servers

OK, so none of us know what Twitter's business model is yet, but if its recent batch of technological quirks is any indication, it sure is getting popular. However, this message, which I got when I just tried to follow a new acquaintance on Twitter, is a first for me anyway.

Good God! Not Agency 3.0!

So, a couple of my friends on Twitter were going on this morning about an agency that plans to call itself Agency 3.0 and is underwritten by the William Morris Agency. For some great press release gobbledy-gook, read on: "The new agency combines WMA’s deep entertainment expertise with the award-winning creativity and experience of the founding team to assist clients in designing, implementing and monetizing their digital media strategies. One part digital technology leader, one part next generation marketing agency, one part strategic content developer, Agency 3.0 is designed to go beyond the scope of traditional agencies by serving clients in this new world of mobility, convergence and digital entertainment." Wondering if we could add "one part bullshit" into that sentence and whether anyone would notice. Anyway, the new shop's founder is Peter Adderton, who looks like a Ford model, but apparently led the bankrupt Amp'd Mobile and Boost Mobile. Now, about this name, Agency 3.0, do you think the blogosphere can kill it the way it seems to have hobbled Synarchy? The name Agency 3.0 just reeks of hubris, although, happily, there's no connection to Nazis! Just to hedge his bets, Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, went out this morning and bought the URL http://www.agency4-0.com. Good one, Ian. LOL. UPDATE: So, for the record, Greg Johnson, a former Digitas and IPG Emerging Media Lab exec who will also be part of the agency, says Agency 3.0 is a "working title." I'm just telling you what I read in Adweek.

The story behind Twitter's Steve Colbert

Last week, I received an email saying that StephenTColbert was following me on Twitter. Following being the sincerest form of social media flattery, I followed him back. Of course, I was not alone. Colbert was following 10,000 people and being followed by about 5,000. But was Colbert real? I did wonder. Not that I pictured him tweeting away all day, but figured that it was possible that Comedy Central had embarked on some Twitter-based promotional campaign. And some of the tweets certainly sounded legit: "Like any good newsman, I believe that if you're not scared, I'm not doing my job." "Move over Oprah, tonight every member of the Colbert Nation receives a priceless gift... the Truth." Credible enough. Comedy Central issued a denial, but was that just part of the joke? Then, last night, this: "Question to Twitter: Shall I continue this farce or retire the account?" OK, so it wasn't Steve Colbert. Whoever did impersonate Colbert, posted a lengthy explanation here. including how the post from one believer, titled, "Stephen Colbert watches Diggnation!” made it to Digg's front page. The fake Colbert has symbolically handed the account over to the real one. Would be cool, if he, or some other worthy personality actually did use Twitter, but not sure we're there yet.

Tangerine Toad revealed, doesn't have orange skin

Some of us have been watching Tangerine Toad do a slow reveal over the last few months. First there was his picture on Twitter, which started as a Toad and then was a toad with a superimposed headshot on it, and then just his headshot. Later, came a first name, Alan, and then last week, when he posted a link to a 1989 New York Times article in which he was quoted, a first and last name, Alan Wolk. (Turns out we overlapped at JWT for an entire month back then.) Now there's nothing left in his closet. Alan has done a good interview over at AgencySpy. Until recently, he worked at DraftFCB. Thanks for outing yourself, Alan.

Apropos of nothing: Sue Simmons and the F-Bomb

I guess I'll file this under reasons to love Twitter, to give it some loose connection to whatever it is I do on Adverganza. So, last night, I'm watching the local NBC4 News when long-time 11 p.m. anchor Sue Simmons launches into an apology for "a word some people find offensive" that she uttered earlier in the evening during a promo for the news when she thought she wasn't on-air. I scrambled to YouTube to try to discover what the naughy word was. Alas, nobody had posted the video yet. But on TwitterScan—which lets you search tweets—I was rewarded. Simmons had said, "What the fuck are you doing?" probably to some poor, off-camera flunkie. Now, you can see the dropping of the F-bomb, and her apology above. Let's just say that her delivery of that offensive word isn't exactly sotto voce. UPDATE: You've probably discovered by now that this clip is no longer available. Bummer.

Is Delta, or someone else, using Twitter?

Saw Digitas' Greg Verdino today at ClickZ's Advertising in Social Media conference today, where he went on about how someone has created an account on Twitter (think social networking via mobile devices, more or less), purporting to represent Delta Air Lines. Verdino, who notes that Delta is an agency client, isn't exactly sure that this person is acting in any official Delta capacity, but he or she seems to work at the airline and like it, so maybe that's not a big deal. I came home and found a link to it, and found a few interesting microposts, such as: "what do y'all think is the best way for a big company to use twitter?" This story has been circulating on some marketing blogs over the last week or so, but still worth mentioning, if for no other reason than I think those of us who know about it like the idea of someone from a company IMing to individuals about the brand they represent—even if the brand he or she represents doesn't know it's being represented. Wow, this is getting meta.