Taco Bell Employee Brags on Twitter About Urinating on Food

Cameron Jankowski allegedly posted a photo of himself taking a leak on a Taco Bell order.

Hacktivist collective Anonymous tweeted a link to a YouTube video that reportedly lists Janowski’s personal details. He was identified as an employee at a Taco Bell restaurant in Fort Wayne, Ind. The video also includes screenshots of tweets that Jankowski posted and retweeted.

Though his account appears to have been deleted, Topsy archived Jankowski’s tweeted photo, which appears to have been posted early Thursday. He directed the tweet to Hunter Moore, the man behind shuttered revenge porn site Is Anyone Up?

Jankowski claimed that the order he urinated on was one that was already messed up. It was thrown away and not served to customers. But some Twitter users suggested his action was a felony.

Janowski apparently claimed he didn’t care that other users were directing his tweet to Taco Bell, claiming he had a new job lined up anyway.

Nothing is more important than the safety of our customers and team members. We have strict food handling procedures and zero tolerance for any violations. As soon as we learned of the situation, we immediately investigated and found the photo was an ill-conceived prank and the food was never served to customers. We find this prank absolutely unacceptable, and we plan to terminate anyone involved and work with authorities to pursue legal action.”

Is Flipboard About to Lose Access to Twitter?

Twitter is no longer allowing its tweets to appear on LinkedIn could Flipboard be next?

The resignation of Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue from Twitter’s board of directors indicates it’s a legitimate possibility.

AllThingsD‘s Kara Swisher reported in May that McCue had approached Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Jack Dorsey about stepping down. The reason? “McCue’s growing feeling that the companies are on a product collision course” meaning, she suggested, that Flipboard is positioned to becoming a more direct rival to Twitter, or a more obvious acquisition target for Twitter or its competitors.

Given Twitter’s moves over the past few weeks, it seems the former is more likely. The same week that Twitter and LinkedIn ended their partnership, Twitter ceased allowing Instagram users to find their Twitter contacts through its app.

In a post on Twitter’s developer blog, Michael Sippey, a group product manager at Twitter, wrote that developers were encouraged to “build applications that run within Tweets,” but said that the company would be “more thoroughly [enforcing] our Developer Rules of the Road with partners, for example with branding,” and that in the coming weeks Twitter would “be introducing stricter guidelines around how the Twitter API is used.” He repeated a statement made by Twitter platorm chief Ryan Sarver last year, warning developers against “build[ing] client apps that mimic or reproduce the mainstream Twitter consumer client experience.”

All of this could point to an incoming conflict with Flipboard or, as TechCrunch‘s Colleen Taylor suggested, simply that McCue is “uncomfortable with these kinds of moves” or too busy with Flipboard.

Losing integration with Twitter would certainly diminish the Flipboard experience, which is designed to help users discover news shared through their social networks alongside topic-specific and RSS news feeds. Without Twitter, some users would lose access to their number-one source for news.

Twitter Apologizes for Suspending Critical Journalist’s Account

Twitter executives apologized Tuesday for suspending the account of a journalist who was critical of NBC’s Olympics coverage. Twitter also published a lengthy blog post by its general counsel addressing the microblogging network’s trust and safety procedures in general.

British journalist Guy Adams had his account suspended Monday after he published a tweet reading, “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com.”

Adams had previously been a harsh critic one of many on Twitter of NBC’s tape-delayed Olympics coverage.

The suspension sparked a worldwide backlash against Twitter for censorship and overreacting to criticism of NBC, with which it has an Olympics partnership. The backlash intensified Tuesday after the Telegraph reported that Twitter had told NBC about the offending tweet which didn’t technically appear to violate Twitter’s stated privacy rules and helped it through the process of requesting a suspension.

Twitter Reinstates NBC-Bashing Journalist Guy Adams

British journalist Guy Adams, whose account was banned by Twitter on Monday after he tweeted the email address of the president of NBC Olympics, has returned to the service Tuesday.

The account ban touched off an international controversy especially after it was reported by the Telegraph that Twitter had informed NBC, with whom it has an Olympics partnership, about the tweet and walked it through the process of requesting his suspension.

Now, according to Adams, NBC has withdrawn its request for the account suspension “and therefore, your account has been unsuspended,” Adams says Twitter wrote him in an email. “No further explanation given or apology offered,” he added.

Twitter has so far not given any detailed reasons for banning Adams. Its terms of service state that you’re not allowed to tweet private email addresses that don’t appear elsewhere on the Internet

StockTwits CEO ‘Disappointed’ With Twitter’s Cashtags

The CEO of StockTwits is accusing Twitter of ripping off one of his company’s innovations clickable “cashtags” based on company ticker symbols.

Such symbols will be distinguished by a dollar sign in front of the symbol. The company announced the introduction Monday night via a tweet.

However, Howard Lindzon, co-founder and CEO of StockTwits, pointed out in a blog post that his company has been doing the same for four years:

I am disappointed of course that Twitter is hijacking our idea and time (will only confuse the masses), but Stocktwits moved beyond that basic functionality four years ago. In a dirty way, it’s the ultimate compliment so we will take it as such for the moment and keep rolling out functionality that makes us the best real-time communication platform for people that love stocks and markets.

Lindzon added that, “You can hijack a plane but it does not mean you know how to fly it.” Twitter reps could not be reached for comment, however it should be noted that other Twitter innovations, like hashtags, were started by users, rather than the compay itself. Meanwhile, some users were debating the issue on Twitter Tuesday morning.

Does Twitter Have Half a Billion Users?

Has Twitter really hit 500 million users, as a new study claims — or is the company drowning in fake accounts?

Twitter tends to be very careful when it comes to announcing user numbers. Wary of its problem with bots and spam accounts — such as the thousands that have started following Mitt Romney in the past few weeks — the company appears to have a policy of only discussing the number of active users.

Back in September 2011, in a State of the Union-style talk at Twitter headquarters, CEO Dick Costolo said there were 100 million active users who log in at least once a month, while 50 million log in every day. On the company’s sixth birthday back in March, it announced the number of active users had reached 140 million though it didn’t specify whether or not that was monthly logins.

Now a Paris-based data analysis company, Semiocast, claims Twitter reached the half-billion accounts mark in June 2012, including more than 140 million in the U.S. alone.

Semiocast doesn’t discuss the difference between active and inactive users. Do the math, however, and it may have just inadvertently revealed that the company has 360 million accounts whose users — if you can call them that — either don’t log in every month, or don’t exist in the first place.

If that’s the case, fake users on Twitter may outnumber the real thing by more than 2 to 1.

The problem is, as data analysis firms such as Topsy have told us in the past, we can’t really get a definitive answer on this. Even the world’s smartest computer scientists can’t discern the difference between someone trying Twitter a few times and then dropping it, and accounts established by spammers or others with malicious intent.

Semiocast is able to provide some more definitive data when it looks at the locations added to tweets. What city in the world tends to tweet the most? You may be surprised to learn it’s the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta:

63% of Retweets Are of Male Users

There may be more women on Twitter, but its male users that are dominating in retweets.

Swedish-based Crossing Boarders has developed a tool called Twee-Q — or “Twitter Equality Quotient” that reveals how many men and women are retweeted by each individual Twitter user. According to the collected results so far, men are significantly leading the retweet race.

Of the more than 11,000 tests conducted via the tool, men make up 63% of all retweets compared to only 37% of women.

Even President Obama’s account — which is run by his campaign team — retweets men (79%) more than women (21%). Rapper Snoop Dogg also favors male retweets (84%).

However, both Lady Gaga and Ellen DeGeneres are equal retweet opportunists, retweeting men and women the same amount.

“We want to change the world by showing how each of us rank women and men when contributing to a conversation,” Twee-Q said on via a translation on its site. “Only when we see how we act, who we choose to listen to and acknowledge, can we take the first steps toward a truly equal society.”

To see if you retweet men or women more, type your Twitter handle into Twee-Q here.

Olympic Journalist Ban: Why Twitter Got It Wrong

Ever heard the name Guy Adams before this weekend? How about Gary Zenkel? No, me neither. Not until Twitter suspended the former, a British journalist based in LA, for tweeting the corporate e-mail address of the latter, the president of NBC Olympics — and created a tempest in a tea cup.

Not only was Twitter’s reaction completely disproportionate, there’s one major problem with it: he didn’t actually violate Twitter’s terms of service.

Adams, like a lot of us here on the West Coast, was upset that NBC had delayed broadcasting the London Olympics’ opening ceremony Friday night — so much so that the Pacific time zone was seeing it six hours after it actually happened (and three hours after our friends on the East Coast started tweeting like crazy about it.)

Plenty of critics vented their outrage at NBC’s policy (which included not putting the opening ceremony online, presumably to make more money from ads broadcast during prime time). Adams probably went a little further than most, calling the action “money grabbing” and decrying the network as “utter bastards.”

Then he wrote this fateful tweet: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com.”

The network complained, and Adams’ entire Twitter account was suspended Monday. The reason, he was told by a Twitter representative, was that he had violated Twitter’s terms of service by posting a private email address.

Was that the case, though? Leave aside the question of whether a corporate email address counts as private. Let’s just assume that it does. Here’s what Twitter has to say about posting private information:

Posting another person’s private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules.

Some examples of private and confidential information are: credit card information, social security or other national identity numbers, addresses or locations that are considered and treated as private, non-public, personal phone numbers, non-public, personal email addresses.

Keep in mind that although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy. [Emphasis mine]

So if Zenkel’s email address was posted anywhere on the Internet prior to Friday, Adams is off the hook and his account should be restored. Right?

I’ll admit, the search is a wee bit harder than it should be. Currently, the first 8 pages of results for Zenkel’s email address on Google is clogged up with stories about Adams. (This is my point about creating a tempest in a tea cup; as a direct result of the suspension, Zenkel’s email has become one of the most public on the planet.)

But way down on page 9, we find what would have been the previous top result for Zenkel’s email address: this blog post from June 20, 2011, criticizing NBC Sports for removing the words “under God” from the pledge of allegiance during the U.S. Open.

Whatever you make of that post and the controversy it refers to, you can’t deny that it contain’s Zenkel’s email address, along with those of a long list of NBC Sports executives.

So Zenkel’s email address was “previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter,” and Adam’s posting of it “is not a violation of this policy.” Game over, checkmate, or as Adams might say: howzat?

I’m not saying that this blog post is how Adams got the address; it has been noticeably absent from his defense. All his recent article in the Independent says is that anyone could construct that address from a basic knowledge of how NBC handles its accounts.

But you don’t even need to go that far. You don’t need to point out that the address is corporate, rather than personal. You need only point to Twitter’s own definition of its rules.

We’ve asked Twitter for comment, and will let you know what we hear back. But don’t be surprised to see Adams’ account reinstated — the company has a history of acting precipitously when it comes to account deletions, then reversing its decision later.

Here’s the Man Who Started #NBCFail

The hashtag #NBCFail has become an unavoidable sight on Twitter these past few days.

On July 27, the day of the opening ceremony, there were just 212 #NBCFail tweets. By July 28, there were 6,000. By July 29, there were 20,000.

Summer Olympics fans, media nerds and commonplace critics alike use it to complain about shoddy streaming experiences, editorial mistakes and most of all  NBC’s preference for obfuscating footage of major Olympic events until airing tape-delayed primetime broadcasts stateside.

After Twitter suspended the account of British journalist Guy Adams  acceding to an NBC request  the hashtag became a trending topic.

But there’s one man who tweeted #NBCFail before it was cool. His name is Steven Marx and he’s a web designer out of Peoria, Illinois. Way back on July 26 a full day before the opening ceremony kicked off the Games in earnest Marx posted this prescient tweet from his Mac:

Marx was referencing the network’s streaming app, which promises to deliver all the action from London in real time, but doesn’t mention until the fine print that you need to be a cable subscriber.

Marx is a bit of an enigma but according to his website has done web work for a farm, a compost company, a massage therapist, and a dental office, among other clients.

At time of writing he had just 18 followers, but we expect that number to grow. We’ve also contacted Marx for more details on the man who started a movement, and will update this story as we hear more.

News of of Marx’s avante garde tweet comes to us via the social media analytics company Peoplebrowsr, which tracks conversations across the web.

NBC’s coverage issues and lack of sharing spirit have also inspired a couple of hilarious parody accounts.

Twitter Doghouse Lets You Temporarily Dump Annoying Tweeps

Are you a non-sports fan but know there’s that one Olympic nut in your Twitter network who will be constantly posting pseudo analysis, lame jokes and failed bon mots for the next two weeks? Maybe you’ve got a friend who’s on vacation and posting way too many Foursquare check-ins, or know someone who insists on live-tweeting every episode of The Bachelor.

It could be time to put them in the Twitter Doghouse. That’s the name of a new app that lets users unfollow tweeps for scheduled periods of time to jokingly call out obnoxious behavior or seriously avoid Twitter-centric events of limited interest to the non-involved (SXSW, anyone?).

Twitter Doghouse was created by developers Elan Dubrofsky and Jure Stern in response to a challenge posted on the crowdsourcing development platform CloudSpokes.

Once you log in and authenticate with your Twitter credentials, you’ll be presented with a form to fill out indicating who you want to put on timeout and for how long. You can spurn someone for as short as one minute or as long as you want.

When you give someone the cold shoulder, you can keep it secret (they’ll still hypothetically be able to find out by scrolling through their entire list of followers and seeing you gone) or send an automated teasing tweet their way. Or, you can tweet to @TwitDoghouse to publicly request service.

Dubrofsky coded the app using Ruby on Rails and has the open-source code posted to his Github page so other programmers can check it out and suggest improvements or tweaks.

Do you think Twitter Doghouse would be a fun tool to play around with? In the comments, tell us who you want to ‘house.

Apple Considered Investing in Twitter [REPORT]

Apple isn’t currently in talks with Twitter to invest in the social-networking site, but according to a report from The New York Times, the two companies were previously in such discussions that would value Twitter at more than $10 billion.

“Apple has considered an investment in the hundreds of millions of dollars, one that could value Twitter at more than $10 billion, up from an $8.4 billion valuation last year, these people [briefed on the matter] said. They declined to be named because the discussions were private,” the Times reports.

Social media, so far, isn’t in Apple’s wheelhouse, and it’s had fragile relations with Facebook in the past. Things with Twitter, on the other hand, have been a little more friendly. As the Times points out, Twitter’s baked in to Apple’s operating systems.

“Those guys are a great partner,” Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said of Apple in a separate interview, according to the Times. “We think of them as a company that our company looks up to.”

In the paired-up world of tech giants and social media, Microsoft and Facebook have each other and Google (which owns Apple’s mobile competitor Android) has Google+. Could Twitter and Apple be the next hot couple?

Twitter Apologizes for Massive Outage

Following a lengthy outage on Thursday, Twitter said it is “deeply” sorry for the inconvenience it has caused users.

“We are sorry,” Twitter said via a blog post. “Many of you came to Twitter earlier today expecting, well, Twitter. Instead, between around 8:20 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. PT, users around the world got zilch from us. By about 10:25 a.m. PT, people who came to Twitter finally got what they expected: Twitter. ”
The social network added that the outage came from within its data centers.

“Data centers are designed to be redundant: when one system fails (as everything does at one time or another), a parallel system takes over,” Twitter said. “What was noteworthy about today’s outage was the coincidental failure of two parallel systems at nearly the same time.”

The outage was first noticed at around 11:15 a.m. ET and experienced issues for well over an hour. The platform slowly come back across the U.S.

The company also posted a note on its blog informing members of the issue: “Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter,” it said on the site. “Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue.”

Today’s outage didn’t just take down Twitter.com but also some of its mobile clients. The issue also disabled the t.co URL shortener.

Instagram: Twitter to Blame for Broken ‘Find Friends’ Feature

Following a widespread pop-up message in its iOS app, Instagram is saying it’s unable to find users’ Twitter contacts because of API tweaks on Twitter’s end.

“Twitter no longer allows its users to access this information in Instagram via the Twitter API. We apologize for any inconvenience,” reads the message to iOS app users. The feature appears to still work in the Android app.

We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update this story when we have more information.

Just a few days ago Twitter CEO Dick Costolo told the Wall Street Journal he wants companies to build into Twitter instead of building off of it. And last month, Twitter cut ties with LinkedIn, ending a partnership that synced updates from one site to the other.

Twitter Goes Down, Comes Back Slowly for Some

Twitter said on Thursday that it is experiencing technical issues and is working to get the site back up soon.

The outage was first noticed at around 11:15 a.m. ET and experienced issues for well over an hour. The platform slowly came back across the U.S with limited functionality.

The company also posted a note on its blog informing members of the issue: “Users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter,” it said on the site. “Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue.”

It is not only experiencing an interruption with Twitter.com but also with some mobile clients. The outage appears to have taken out the t.co url shortener.

In the meantime, the site is telling its users: “Thanks for your patience!”

The news comes just weeks after Twitter experienced its biggest outage in eight months. It was also down for about an hour.

Twitter May Launch Reality TV Shows [REPORT]

Twitter, the next big reality TV platform? The social networking site is reportedly talking to Hollywood producers and networks about launching several reality TV shows that would stream on its site.

According to an AdWeek report, serious talks are already underway for the initiative. A source close to the matter said content would be similar to popular MTV reality shows such as The Hills and Real World.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

The move would be a part of a greater effort to enter the broadcasting world. It’s been recently reported that the company is partnering with NBC during the 2012 Olympics to serve as a hub dedicated to covering the event. Meanwhile, Twitter similarly worked with ESPN in May to create custom ad programs around major sporting events.

Twitter will likely have dedicated pages for each reality show, along with an embedded video player. The site has also been discussing advertising opportunities with potential partners that could bring in deals in the $4 million range, AdWeek said.

Twitter Sentiment to Light Up London’s Ferris Wheel

The London Eye, that city’s famous Ferris wheel, will become a giant mood ring, projecting England’s Twitter-based sentiment about the upcoming Olympic Games.

EDF Energy, a utility in that country, has enlisted “the UK’s foremost expert on Twitter sentiment analysis,” Mike Thelwall, and Sosolimited, a team of MIT graduates with expertise in linguistic analysis, to interpret

UK-based tweets that reference the Olympics. The group will scan Twitter for tweets including phrases like “Olympics,” “Torch Relay,” “#energy2012″ and “London 2012.” Then, a sentiment algorithm will determine the amount of positive and negative emotion contained in the message. The prevailing sentiment will be reflected in the color of the lights on the London Eye during a nightly 30-minute light show during the games: Yellow is positive, green is neutral and purple is negative.

The UK team isn’t the first to try to use Twitter as a gauge of the country’s mood: Last year at this time, Kraft’s Jell-O brand ran an online and outdoor campaign called the Jell-O Pudding Face Mood Meter that featured a man whose face was either smiling or frowning based on how many smile and frown emoticons were on Twitter. 

Twitter to Partner with NBC for Olympics Hub [REPORT]

Twitter will act as a narrator of sorts for the Olympics with a hub dedicated to covering the event in partnership with NBC, according to a report.

Under the deal, which is expected to be announced Monday, Twitter will act as a curator for “millions of Twitter messages from Olympic athletes, their families, fans and NBC television personalities” which will be showcased on a single page on Twitter.com, according to The Wall Street Journal. NBC, which is airing the event, will direct viewers to the page “with on-air promotions and links to athlete interviews or video clips.”

Reps from Twitter and NBC could not be reached for comment.

No money is changing hands in the deal, according to the report. Twitter sees the Games a chance to prove itself to A-list advertisers and has been courting companies to buy ads on Twitter to spread their ad messages, according to the report.

The deal between Twitter and NBC had been expected. The TV network announced a similar deal with Facebook earlier this month in which NBC will use Facebook data to inform viewers about which athletes and topics are garnering the most social media discussion. For its part, Twitter also inked a similar agreement with ESPN in May to create custom ad programs around major sporting events.

55 Signs You’re Still Addicted to Social Media & Twitter

It’s been awhile since I wrote one of these posts. I think we have all pretty much confirmed we have addiction problems to social media and that crazy little blue bird. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse now we have pins and plusses to worry about.

So, just in case you thought you were out of luck in getting a free pass to social media addict bootcamp, no worries. If you answer yes to at least 50% of the below signs then you have an official lifetime member pass.

1. When and if you ever get to sleep you find yourself counting Pinterest boards versus sheep.

2. You could literaly operate Hootsuite on your iPhone with your eyes closed while talking,  jogging and chugging a bottle of water simultaneously.

3. Your garden reminds you of Pinterest and you even pinned a photo of it to your gardening board.

4. You have officially taught the grocery store clerk how to tweet. She should also now take this quiz.

5. Your kids understand social media better than most of your clients.

6. You are considering having your 10 year old fill in for you on an upcoming webinar.

7. You no longer have patience for people who tell you “my clients are not on social media.”

8. You turn down as many clients as you take on due to the “not going to sell you on social media factor.”

9. Your kids know the meaning of Tweet chat, hashtag, syndication, content marketing and edgerank.

10. You know how many tweets it takes to get thrown in Twitter jail.

11. You know the secret ninja tricks to get out Twitter jail.

12. You know who @TwitJailWarden is.

13. You participate in at least 3 tweet chats weekly.

14. You have accidently written your Twitter username on personal checks and other legal signatures.

15. You officially installed a tweet and iPad station in your family bathroom.

16. If a male family member goes to the restroom without the iPad everyone asks them what’s wrong or if they need to charge it.

17. You have received serious threats from your kids if you share a bad photo of them on Facebook.

18. You often question if you should just change your legal name to your Twitter handle.

19. Someone has stalked you at a local establishment and asked for you by your Twitter handle.

20. You have mastered inbound marketing and the automated online conversion funnel. Weekends are now yours, all yours!

21. Even though your online platform works while you’re not working on weekends, you still can’t get that smartphone out of your hand!

22. You have accepted the fact your brain now thinks in 140 character segments.

23. Everyone in your neighborhood thinks you live on Facebook and Twitter and have no life.

24. You question if your neighbors are right about #23.

25. You just thought to yourself “my neighbors are right about #23.”

26. You have too many Facebook pages to keep track of.

27. You are somewhat happy when Facebook has a slow performance day as it gives you an excuse to stay away from it for a bit.

28. Even some of your clients who started out with only 30 Twitter followers are now self proclaimed “Twitter Rockstars!”

29. You still cringe when clients and partners introduce you at speaking engagements and events as the “social media guru.”

30. You forget that not everyone you know is addicted to social media as you.

31. You no longer care if you tick off your parents or extended family with your psuedo business updates on your personal Facebook page.

32. Spammers on Twitter no longer bother you.

33. You have thought about creating a website to plublicly shame copycats and plagiarists who copy and paste your blog posts.

34. You don’t care who unfollows you. You know there are plenty more where they came from.

35. You are what you tweet and proud of it.

36. Your kids know most of the people in your Tribe on Triberr!

37. Your kids know every Facebook major update there has been the past year.

38. Your kids make fun  of you when you like your own posts on Facebook but you still do it anyway.

39. You get told daily by small business owners “you were right about Twitter at that seminar two years ago… it sure is a powerful tool.” You just think to yourself, “ya think? should have listened to me then, heh!?”

40.  You know the businesses in your local city who are less than a year away from going out of business because they have failed to adopt new media.

41. For fun you have mastered sending your bully “self proclaimed” competition on a wild goose chace of tangents distracted from their core business model with just a couple tweets or blog posts that get them spinning in the wrong direction.

42. Even though you have 50k followers on Twitter you mastered keeping private what you want private about your business and making public what you want public.

43. You are glad they didn’t have Facebook when you were in high school or else you would have never gotten away with the half the stuff you did.

44. You have mastered #cardiotweeting and can officially keep your heart rate in target zone while tweeting, reading blog posts and catching up on Facebook.

45. You leave the house for 30 minutes and come up with 5 new blog post ideas.

46. Your kids give you ideas daily for blog posts.

47. Your kids are launching a new business and already know what platforms their audiences are on and are ready for their Facebook business page.

48. You are jealous that your kids will never have to get a “real job” and can literally be successful entrepreneurs from age of 12!

49. You have at least one pet named 140, Tweetie or troll.

50. You have a hard time finding a developer who knows WordPress as well as you do.

52. You are considering dressing as a Pinterest board for Halloween this year but know most of your friends and neighbors won’t think it’s funny nor know what you are.

53. You swore you would never read another post about social media addiction.

54. You are questioning why you read this post as it already confirmed what you know.

55. You are going to tweet this post to your friends who will also agree with number #53 & #54.

Chick-Fil-A Faces Gay Marriage Backlash on Twitter, Facebook

Chick-Fil-A president Dan Cathy sparked a social media firestorm among gay marriage supporters and opponents after taking a public stance on the divisive issue this week.

Speaking to Christian news site Baptist Press, Cathy called Chick-Fil-A “guilty as charged” in response to past criticism of its position on same-sex marriage; he said the company is “very much supportive of the family the biblical definition of the family unit.”

Cathy later added: “We intend to stay the course. We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Many customers and offended observers took to Twitter to blast the chicken sandwich fast food chain. Online cooking show host Hilah Johnson posted a YouTube video on how to make a homemade “Chick-Fil-Gay” sandwich and avoid shopping at the chain. Actor Ed Helms of The Office and The Hangover tweeted that he would begin a boycott

:
Chick-Fil-A then used its Facebook Page on Thursday to respond to the criticism.

“The Chick-Fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender,” read a post that received more than 47,000 Likes and 10,000 comments in a matter of hours. “Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

SEE ALSO: Flickr Tells Internet to ‘Help Make Us Awesomer’

While some of the Facebook comments were critical, many backed up Cathy’s comments against gay marriage or deemed the issue irrelevant to where they’d spend their money.

Chick-Fil-A isn’t the first food company to wade into gay rights issues on social media. On the other side of the debate, Oreo posted a pro-gay rights message to its Facebook Page last month and drew a massive if mixed response.

Twitter Rolls Out Targeted Tweets

Twitter has rolled out an enhancement to Promoted Tweets that lets advertisers target a subset of users.

Called targeted tweets, the feature lets advertisers send tweets to specific audiences without tweeting to all of a brand’s followers. Promoted Tweets already has that feature, but the difference is now a marketer doesn’t have to first send the tweet to all of its followers. Advertisers using targeted tweets can segment by location, devices and platforms.

Twitter has been quietly testing the feature with a handful of advertisers including British Airways, Coca-Cola, The Washington Post Co. and Wendy’s. Twitter announced on Thursday that the feature is available globally to all users.

SEE ALSO: TweetDeck Rolls Out Sleeker Navigation, Management Tools

As an example of how the program works, Twitter showcased the following British Airways tweet, which was just sent to UK users:

Advertisers can start using the program via the Tweet box in ads.twitter.com. As with other Promoted Tweets, advertisers only pay when users engage with them. Tweets that generate the most engagement are also likely to appear more often.