How did Moonfruit respond?
Goldstein: Surprisingly well. It expressed surprise that its campaign was so successful and that it had no intention to dominate Twitter for 10 days or move aside important subjects like Iran from the agenda. In a candid reply by its marketing director, she admitted that the “campaign could set a dangerous precedent” and could lead to an “abuse by marketers.” She was, however, disappointed Twitter had summarily suppressed the Moonfruit tag without notice. Moonfruit would have gladly worked with Twitter to limit the promotion. Editors: Since the campaign was so successful, up to a point, do you think other marketers will follow suit? Goldstein: Maybe. Although Twitter could also respond to other commercial campaigns that “abused” the Twitter social network, a marketer could, at least for a while, get a massive viral response to a simple sweepstakes if the prizes were attractive enough. The Mac laptops cost, say $10,000, and for that Moonfruit reaped an astonishing 300 tweets per minute.
