Comments on: The REAL story behind the 104-Year-Old who joined Twitter

By: Francine Hardaway

Francine Hardaway — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:36:53 +0000

Daniel schorr was 93 when he died, and he was on Twitter.

By: Francine Hardaway

Francine Hardaway — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:34:46 +0000

Ageists. I have a friend who is 87 and on FB and Twitter, put herself on and talks to her grandchildren and me that way. She just did it. Why is there an age limit on discovery and willingness to engage? If you have your mind and your body is stuck in a care home, Twitter can be a godsend.

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:29:01 +0000

The Daily Telegraph & The Sun publishing this story should have been your first heads up.

By: William

William — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:56:07 +0000

Looks like she passed away though…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1298301/Worlds-oldest-Twitter-user-Ivy-Bean-dies-aged-104.html

By: Paul Evans

Paul Evans — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:51:47 +0000

Not sure if anyone’s noticed, but her twitter stream has been updated to say she’s passed away.

Probably best to just put this story to bed now, out of respect, regardless of any PR or media intentions.

By: Diamonds Jewelry

Diamonds Jewelry — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:22:43 +0000

Hi All, I have good experience in twitter. I am made my Diamond Jewelry account at twitter. Really nice experience

By: molly

molly — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:46:30 +0000

This is the biggest load of……. Her names vicky and she does use these sites herself. She’s been on the news speaking about how much she enjoys doing this. so leave her alone. Not everything is a conspiracy you know.

By: david walker

david walker — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:37:16 +0000

Simon, you do relise that this site is nofollow, lol

By: Pizza Hut review their twintern – she’s now a tweetologist

Pizza Hut review their twintern – she’s now a tweetologist — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 21:13:22 +0000

[...] no doubt that Twitter can make headlines. Remember the 104 year old tweeter? Another nice PR stunt using the microblogging service. I’d like to see less companies using Twitter as a vehicle by [...]

By: How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | OpenABlog

How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | OpenABlog — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 09:06:54 +0000

[...] to TechCrunch, it was not. In a post titled The REAL story behind the 104-Year-Old who joined Twitter they explain that the old lady had joining Twitter just one day before, and that she was convinced [...]

By: expertia

expertia — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:52:01 +0000

What i sad story. Something i experience so often with elderly people….they get used and abused because they do not understand the risks and neither the possibilities of the internet. And you don’t have to be 104. expertia User are an average of 52 Years and still hard to handle but undoubtedly an growing target group. Would they onyl be viral!! we have 10.000 open Jobs for Best ager and one of the best silver surfer network, yet they do not rocket like facebook people! Patience is all i have to offer! And of course we also startet to twitter! No one realy wants to follow! To afraid of misused data! http://www.expertia.de. Come and join if you have good ideas!

By: Bob Kerns

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:43:42 +0000

While I appreciate and support your impulse toward journalistic transparency, I must say, your condescension toward the elderly leaves me cold.

You assume that Geek Squad “took advantage of an old lady”. Maybe, just maybe, the old lady thought their idea was cool — especially since she’d had experience with facebook.

Maybe, just maybe, Geek Squad going in and helping her get set up on Twitter was an act of charity and kindness. Lots of corporations do good works, and then publicize the fact. Is this wrong? Does it really matter whether they conceived the idea for the publicity, and decided it was a good work that would resonate with people, or if they were volunteers who spent some time with an old lady in a nursing home, and later chose to publicize it?

In the interest of journalistic transparency: You do not have the SLIGHTEST evidence that this woman was taken advantage of, manipulated, or harmed in any way. You do not have the SLIGHTEST reason to believe that she isn’t having more fun than she’s had since she joined Facebook.

In other words — you made this whole issue up out of whole cloth, and you owe this woman, and your readers, an apology.

Not because you’re wrong — I don’t know that either. But because it is condescending, insulting, and just plain Bad Journalism.

By: How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | AskCharly

How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | AskCharly — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 21:20:01 +0000

[...] messaging service. But was it real? According to TechCrunch, it was not. In a post titled The REAL story behind the 104-Year-Old who joined Twitter they explain that the old lady had joining Twitter just one day before, and that she was convinced [...]

By: bryan

bryan — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:15:46 +0000

I completely disagree about the notion that this is one of the most “self-serving, cynical PR stunts” you can remember. You really think its that bad that a company took a photograph of this woman on her new twitter page and tried to get some press coverage out of it?i just found this amazing website, it has all kind of businesses from a cleaning companies to estate agents to banks, all I have to do is just type in the business type, and the location and it gives me all the results in that particular area, this website has a huge database of all sorts of businesses, I just joined a driving school which I found on this website. I would recommend this site to all the people out there.

By: How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | The Best Seo Blogs

How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | The Best Seo Blogs — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:55:50 +0000

By: How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? « Site Seo Doctor Blog

How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? « Site Seo Doctor Blog — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:30:02 +0000

By: Twitter Twit takes PR to a 104 year low « PR Linked

Twitter Twit takes PR to a 104 year low « PR Linked — Sun, 24 May 2009 10:31:27 +0000

[...] old woman in a retirement home as part of a PR stunt….and the journo’s took the bait. TechCrunch Editor Mike Butcher unmasked the stunt after performing back breaking investigation you’d [...]

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 23 May 2009 23:21:12 +0000

I know! A WOMAN, even! It’s unthinkable!

(Sheesh.)

By: How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | Sweep Money

How Far Can We Go to Build Buzz? | Sweep Money — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:38:06 +0000

By: emily

emily — Fri, 22 May 2009 17:14:14 +0000

hello are u old
ohh
i know you hey when are u coming to me by preson

By: Actualité twitter N°1

Actualité twitter N°1 — Fri, 22 May 2009 16:38:01 +0000

[...] Une vieille dame de 104 balais utilise twitter il y a quand même plus de 14000 personnes qui suivent la vieille dame qui explique qu’elle a eu un bon déjeuner avant d’aller faire la sieste…. [...]

By: my blogg » My twitter story

my blogg » My twitter story — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:53:58 +0000

[...] been using twitter and surprisingly a cat now has a twitter account, and tweet – apart from the 104 years old lady who joined the twitter adventure! So, if that is their story now it is my turn. This is how twitter has smashed my life, [...]

By: Techblast

Techblast — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:58:01 +0000

Busted haha.. that story is hilarious.

Im guessing their link bait attempt worked better than they thought!

By: Riktor

Riktor — Fri, 22 May 2009 04:36:39 +0000

If you check up on Ivy you may have noted that Ivy both competed in and won a gold medal in the “over 75 olympics”

The update states:
Ivy Bean just won a Gold medal in todays Over 75 Olympics

Very feasibly, she’s made many friends from facebook if not simply winning the competition which could account for those she is following as well.

I’m open minded, and at first I even considered the possibility that this was just a PR stunt, but if you do even the slightest amount of digging, I’d say it’s fair to assume that this woman can tweet just as well as the rest of us!

Frankly, if GeekSquad also trained Ivy to be a gold medalist, bravo to them! That’s certainly more than I ever did for my grandma when hooking up her dvd player!

I applaud you, Ivy!

By: dman2kn1

dman2kn1 — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:52:36 +0000

This story is absolutely rediculous. I love how people try as hard as they can to find anything ‘incriminating’ on major retail stores. Sounds to me like the Geek Squad was doing their job by helping this lady. She probably contacted them because she wasn’t too tech saavy, so why would it be wrong of them to try to show her new aspects of life in a digital world? What a garbage story trying to get people to come to your site.