I have two Twitter accounts. One I use quite regularly, the other I have allowed to sit dormant for quite a while. Apparently Twitter noticed today and sent me this email:
The three people listed are not three I follow on either Twitter account. I do not even know who "Terrence J" is. But what really caught my eye was Andrew Breitbart. Breitbart died suddenly on March 1st, more than two months ago. A visit to his Twitter page still shows his last several tweets, some sent only hours before his death. So what is Twitter's purpose here? I sent a tweet to Twitter asking this question, but so far have no response. At best, including Breitbart is insensitive to the family and friends of Andrew, especially with the line: "Find out what these people are saying on Twitter right now!" At worst, it's intentional salt in the wound.
UPDATE: Someone emailed me with the observation that "the choice of people to highlight in the email is no doubt automated to include people with lots of followers or mentions. But you’d think they’d leave out someone like Breitbart, who hasn’t tweeted in two months." I would agree that the "intentional" inclusion is unlikely. But since being up-to-the-second is Twitter's bread and butter, perhaps their we-missed-you-email algorithm needs tweaking to check “tweets sent” as well as followers and mentions. Two months in Twitter-time is an eternity.
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