Dear reader, TechCrunch owes you an apology. But at least we are apologising - unlike the many news outlets that ran the blatant PR that was the “104-Year-Old joins Twitter” story last week. To explain…
On May 15 two UK newspapers ran the story about 104 year old woman “Ivy Bean” / @ivybean104 joining Twitter. We correctly called it out as a ruse, but we got the wrong target. What none of those original stories told you, was that poor old Ivy had not joined Twitter just because it was suddenly the talk of the senior citizens home. No. She joined because home PC maintenance company Geek Squad signed her up, propped her up for a photo opportunity - even using her own account to Twitpic the event - and press-released the hell out of it. And the media fell for it.
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