Wires Crossed #29 – March 18

Just Not Cricket

Just Not Cricket
Or basketball for that matter. AP Sportswriter Jon Krawczynski is being sued by NBA ref William Spooner over a Twitter message that Krawczynski made. The 140 character piece of text alleged that the whistle blower made a bad call to even up another bad call made earlier in the game. Spooner is asking for US$75,000 and the rogue tweet taken down. I know the US is a litigious society, but c’mon Bill, grow a thicker skin.

Marketing Gaffe By Microsoft
Most successful companies have a great marketing strategy. Using that strategy to take advantage of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of north-eastern Japan is not one of Microsoft’s best moments. In order to raise money for the earthquake Microsoft tweeted the following on its Bing Twitter account – “How you can #SupportJapan- http://binged.it/fEh7iT. For every retweet, @bing will give $1 to Japan quake victims, up to $100K." Not cool Microsoft. They did apologise, but I’m wondering what their co-founder Bill Gates would say. I doubt the full-time philanthropist would be happy about it.

Comedian Sacked Over Japanese Joke
Controversial US comedian Gilbert Gottfried has been sacked for a similar gaffe to Microsoft by making jokes about the Japanese earthquake. Gottfried, who was fired as spokesperson for insurance underwriter, Aflac, has gotten in similar trouble before. Back in 2001 he made jokes about 9-11 when telling the famous Aristocrat’s joke three weeks after event. Gottfried, who showed only slight remorse for the jokes, did later delete them, and followed up with the following statement “I was born without a censor button. My mouth and now e-mail will continue to get me into trouble.” I doubt it will be the last time he makes comments that get him in trouble.

EA Overreacts To Tantrum
Seems game publisher EA is a little sensitive to criticism. A user on its community forum was booted from the website for offering up a bit of criticism of developer Bioware. Seems he/she wasn’t following the rules, but to add insult to injury he/she couldn’t install a copy of the game, Dragon Age II, which he/she had just paid the best part of $60. The offending remark? That Bioware had “sold their souls to the EA devil”. To quote one of Australia’s more colourful characters, Chopper Read, EA needs to “Harden up.” Although Read added a couple more colloquial terms in the middle of the quote, which no doubt the community users .