Uptown, Chicago Woman sued for defamation over Twitter post

In case you haven't heard about this interesting piece of news... A Chicago woman was sued by Horizon Realty - the company that manages her apartment building - over the following tweet:

""Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's okay."

The suit claimed that Horizon's reputation was badly injured by the tweet, and they are seeking $50,000 in damages.

Now, I don't think that this suit will hold up in court, but I do however, think it sets an interesting precedent and frankly, I am surprised we haven't seen more Twitter related lawsuits. One reader of Chicago Now's "Chicago Bartender" pointed to a negative Yelp.com review for the same Realty and wondered whether or not they would also sue that user.

Ironically, I think Horizon Realty will do far more damage to their reputation with this lawsuit than the Twitter user ever could with her Tweet - which frankly, wasn't that harsh.

Audi Commerical - Street Skiing in San Francisco

Incredible commercial showing an obviously insane person skiing on pavement, dodging cable cars, and slaloming parking meters. Link to the "making of" video is interesting, but it is in German.


- The most amazing home videos are here

In the Doghouse

In honor of Valentine's day, I am posting this JC Penny commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi (which came out around Christmas this year). If you take it seriously enough, you may find it distasteful because, like many ads, it re-enforces unhealthy gender stereotypes (materialistic women and the bumbling idiot men they married). It made ME laugh, anyway.

Twitter Dictionary for the Uninitiated

This weekend, my Mom gave me the surprising news that she joined Twitter. This fact convinces me that Twitter is going mainstream. In honor of this momentous occasion, I decided to post a Twitter dictionary for the uninitiated.


Twitter - Free micro-blogging service. Like your FB status but so much more.
Tweets - Twitter posts
Tweeting - the act of posting a new tweet
Dweets - drunken twitter posts
Tweeple/tweeps - people who use Twitter
Twerps/Twits - not-so-nice way to describe people who tweet
Twitterati - Tweeple with lots of followers
Twitiquette - Twitter etiquette
RT (re-tweet) - reposting someone's tweet
Fail Whale - when the Twitter servers are over capacity, you receive an error message with a photo of a very cute whale.

There seem to be innumerable ways to make up new, amusing twords to describe your activities on Twitter, but I hope these few will help my Mom (and others) get started.

Unfortunate Commercial Placement - Battlestar Galactica

***Major SPOILER Alert**** This clip will show a key plot point in Battlestar Galactica. If you are not caught up, watching this clip will ruin a major surprise. Consider yourself warned...

This Battlestar Galactica commercial break juxtaposed a bloody and emotionally intense moment in the show with a tomato soup spattering commercial set to "I Just Want to Celebrate" from Rare Earth.

eTrade Baby Superbowl Outakes

The fabulous folks over at Adrants blogged about this video today and since I laughed out loud I decided to repost it here.

Etsy and the crowdsourcing phenomenon

In this video, Wired Biz author Jeff Howe discusses how Etsy - an online marketplace selling handmade goods from more than 100,000 crafty folks from all over the world - has used the web and crowdsourcing to channel creativity & passion and turn it into profits.

Crowdsourcing as defined by Wikipedia: the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call.

It is a term that has been thrown around a lot in the past couple of years because it is so obviously shaping the way we do business, thanks to Web 2.0. Wikipedia, itself is a prime example of crowdsourcing, as are the "recommended" items in your Amazon and Netflix accounts, even search engines use the power of the crowd to determine the relevance of a particular site. We see crowdsourcing as the main business model for companies like RYZ which lets consumers design the sneakers and vote on the best designs which are then produced and sold on their website with a kick-back to designer. We also see crowdsourcing used as a way for companies to connect with their customers; like the contest hosted by Heinz for a user-generated commercial.

The ultimate goal obviously is to translate all of the consumer creation & involvement into profits; some companies are inevitably more successful than others, but if crowdsourcing allows me to buy awesome things like these
Cute little crocheted cupcakes, you won't hear any complaints from me.