Oh those jokesters at Twitter.
Late last night, blogger Louis Gray stumbled upon what appeared to be an upcoming Twitter feature called “Shoutout.” The evidence was a protected Twitter account with a cute birdie icon and the following bio “Contribute your shoutouts to peeps.” It also happens to have only followers that are Twitter employees. So is it the next big thing from Twitter?
No, says director of communications Sean Garrett. In an email that he clearly had some fun sending to a bunch of people in the media this morning (even though we didn’t reach out to them about it in the first place), Garrett digs into the vernacular of using “shout out” versus “give props to.” He also talks about how the feature might be revealed during Dancing with the Stars or during halftime of a football game.
And he links to a YouTube video of nearly 30 year old Super Bowl halftime performance and even faked a DM fail this morning to keep the game going.
Nice job, Sean.
Of course after his paragraph of kidding around, he notes at the bottom of his email that: “However, what we can say is that it’s not a product. It’s an internal account where Twitter employees “give props” to each other.“
So basically, Twitter Shoutout is their internal Warm Fuzzy Jar. Meanwhile, another protected Twitter account found last night, Twitter On Notice, is likely their internal Cold Prickly Jar.
Cute.
Below find Garrett full email:
There have been reports of a Twitter Shout Out™ product being launched on the market soon. We can neither confirm or deny a product at this time. Not even if you ask us really nicely*. However, what we can say is that we are always optimizing for user value and relevance. For example, just the other day Ev was saying that we should totally find ways to “give props” to users adding value on the system in a way that is organic to how people are already using Twitter. Someone told Ev that “give props” wasn’t something that people said anymore. Biz — or was it Jason? — then said that “shout out” was now a more common vernacular for a “kind mention of a homie” (Urban Dictionary). Anywho, where were we? Oh yeah, Twitter Shout Out™ and that freakin’ leak. Or was it a leak? Or was it after-midnight sleuthing? You tell me. Or, maybe the this is all some sort of some special tease to later to be revealed during Dancing with the Stars or, better yet, at halftime of an exhibition football game. Speaking of which, whatever happened with the folks in Up With People? Do you think they are really are still that happy?
*However, what we can say is that it’s not a product. It’s an internal account where Twitter employees “give props” to each other.
[image via]
Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 (launched publicly in July 2006), is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates 140 characters long. Twitter “is a real-time information network that connects [users] to the latest stories, ideas, opinions, and news.” The service can be accessed through a variety of methods, including Twitter’s website; text messaging; instant messaging; and third-party desktop, mobile, and web applications. Twitter is currently available in...
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