Introducing the Twitter twits

There's a middle aged guy who used to work at the office who occasionally shares his not so enlightened views on life on Facebook.

I'm not sure if he drinks and updates but it certainly appears that way. During the Golden Globes, for example, he spouted off dozens of incoherent sounding updates full of typos on the state of Lady Gaga's bottom and the like.

At other times these comments have been embittered and included personal attacks.

While nobody really takes the rantings of a former employee very seriously, social networking gaffes have already landed some well known figures in cyber hell.

Twitter, in particular, seems to land people in trouble.

Although I signed up to Twitter some years ago and was surprised to be able to secure @davidmacaulay before my beardy namesake who writes illustrated books got there, the attraction wore off after I tired of the competition to see how many random strangers I could get to follow me back.

Now I can't see a lot of uses for Twitter unless you want to overthrow a Middle Eastern despot.

There's an academic called Nir Rosen who may be wishing he never discovered Twitter after Tweeting about how Lara Logan, the TV reporter who was subjected to a sex attack in Egypt was "trying to outdo" rival news correspondent Anderson Cooper.

Rosen quit his job but not before issuing a half-hearted apology of a Tweet that read.

He wrote: 'Ah f*** it, I apologize for being insensitive, it's always wrong, that's obvious, but I'm rolling my eyes at all the attention she will get.'

One of the most expensive gaffes on Twitter was that of footballer Darren Bent of Tottenham who berated his boss Daniel Levy on Twitter – putting him in line for an £80,000 fine.

Fashion designer Kenneth Cole didn't fire himself for his twittish tweet but I imagine he was left with more color in his face than in his outfits.

During the demonstrations in Egypt, Cole sent out a  tweet from @KennethCole reading "Millions are in an uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online."

The tweet went on to provide a link to the collection, but it was taken down about five hours later, when Cole said he was sorry on Facebook.

The gaffe led to a satirical fake Twitter feed that attracted thousands of followers called (at)KennethColePR.


Tweets on this site included "Rolling through Germany? Gestapo by our new Berlin store!" and "Jeffrey Dahmer would have eaten up our spring collection!"

Social networking is a scary new world. I'm sure I'm not alone in posting something after a few glasses of Pinot Noir, only to see it the next morning and to think.....hmmmmmm.

But while it's tempting after a bad day at the office to post something humorous about your boss being a blood sucking maniac with buck teeth, small man syndrome and a blonde mullet the size of a mulberry bush, the rule of thumb on social networks has to be 'if in doubt, don't be a bird brain - just leave it out.'