Friday, January 16, 2015

Famous last tweets?

There was a famous film from the 1970’s – Little Big Man – in which the ancient character, Jack Crabb (played by Dustin Hoffman), croaks out:

My name is Jack Crabb, and I am the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

Well, my name is Maureen Rogers, and I am apparently the sole person still using a Blackberry.

Seriously, sometimes when I take it out in front of others, I feel like I’m sporting a World War II era walkie-talkie.

Oooh….Aaah…Look…A Blackberry…Oooh…Aaah…

Do you carry it in your reticule?

The Blackberry is on my list to replace – it is, after all, over three years old – ancient history, electronics-wise. But it’s still chugging along. As is my similarly aged laptop. I do think the laptop will collapse first, but once I’m out electronics shopping I might as well do full sweep/fell swoop. I’ve pretty much settled on a Surface Pro for my computer, but I’m still at loose ends on a phone. Can you text on a World War II era walkie-talkie?

I do know that I’m on my last Blackberry.

They’ve been fine, but enough is enough.

And even the Blackberry folks are apparently ditching their Blackberrys in favor of other devices. Included in this group is whoever tweets out on the Blackberry official twitter account.

Here’s what happened:

Last year, there was a bit of a flurry when Blackberryit emerged that Alicia Keyes, who was the company’s “celebrity creative director” was sailing off tweets from an iPhone. (She blamed it on hackers, but who knows…)

In the latest episode, however, the official Blackberry Twitter account – which communicates to those few, those happy few, that band of brothers and sisters who remain Blackberry-loyal and Blackberry-proud – used an iPhone to get its word out.

If you can’t read the fine print there, it reads “via Twitter for iPhone”.)

Here’s what The Verge had to say:

You'd think the BlackBerry Classic would be a perfect device for thumbing out 140-character missives and sending them to the world; that keyboard is undeniably fantastic.

But nope. Whoever wrote this fired it off from an iPhone. You wouldn't see it anywhere in the regular Twitter app, but companies still seem to forget this stuff is plainly visible in Tweetbot, Tweetdeck, and other clients. Let's learn the lesson already, everyone. Why was this message so urgent that it needed to be tweeted from a phone?  From an iPhone, at that? We'll never know. And in case you were wondering, yes, a Twitter app for BlackBerry most definitely does exist. (Source: The Verge)

Using an iPhone when you’re working for Blackberry? Maybe not your smartest move, but ‘meh.’

Using an iPhone when you’re the outsourced provider of their social media work? Maybe not the smartest move, but ‘meh.’

Using an iPhone to carry out that social media work when you’re doing it on behalf of Blackberry? Whether you’re an insider or an outsider, I’d say this bit of stupidity and stunning lack of judgment might well be a firing offense.

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Thanks to my brother-in-law John for spotting this article.

3 comments:

trixie said...

You're not the only one who still has a Blackberry - apparently Kim Kardashian hoards them as she is afraid they will "go extinct":

http://www.businessinsider.com/kim-kardashian-hoards-blackberry-phones-2014-10

Maureen Rogers said...

I have long thought that I had something in common with the Kardashians. Now I know...

Anonymous said...

You should see the reaction when you tell people that you don't have a cell phone.

And the reaction is even funnier when you tell them that yes, once you had a cell phone and you got ride of it and your life is happier...priceless!