Seesmic recently released its new Tweetdeck-esque desktop client with some fanfare, competition and even a YouTube video. Included in the promotional video is about twenty seconds plus of yours truly, or more specifically, my Twitter handle (kudos to Linda Bustos for spotting this).
The video made me laugh and reminded me of a post I wrote on brandjacking. Brandjacking is when people/entties lift brands and affiliate with them using social media very easily, and often without their permission.
Don’t get me wrong, in this particular instance I don’t care, and probably benefitted from it. But the incident does bring up several questions:
Again, I really don’t care about this particular incident. But it does highlight how brandjacking — a very common occurrence in social media — could get litigious quickly if companies aren’t careful.
I appreciate your post and honestly did not even think about that when we did the video but it is a good point. It will be a pain but next time we should probably do it with a test account that only follows people from the company or who do not mind being in the video.
We’re not a big brand either… just a startup… so thanks for being easy.
Totally cool, Loic. I chuckled when I saw it, but thought it does raise an issue. Please excuse my using you as a foil.
good to hear. “branjacked by seesmic” is a very strong statement I think and misleading. It makes us look like a bad evil company exploiting you while we’re just trying to explain what our product does… We’re a very small team and doing a video like this is already some efforts, I will make sure we’re more careful though, setting up demo accounts following only the team.
All we did was put tweets from timelines of people who we follow or follow us on these accounts in a video.
the tweets as well as the profile pictures are entirely public and there is no indication on your twitter profile that you don’t want this to happen, these are not protected updates, for example.
in a nutshell, I feel you have been a bit tough on us on this one, and I don’t feel really good about the retweets with your blog post title, but that’s life, I will be more careful in the future.
we’re not evil.
Perhaps, but I think the the tone of the post is very clear that I see no major offense. As to your claim that I should indicate in my profile that such activity may upset me, why should I have to put up a statement that says don’t use my personal image in your marketing? I mean where do we think it’s OK to just do that? While I know you are not evil, if it was a real celebrity you may have paid for it. That’s the point.
that’s a good point. As I said, I will be more careful next time and glad you see no major offense.
Hey there, totally honored you use the photo as your avatar. On the flip side should I have asked you if you minded me shooting your pic and uploading it on flickr? :) It’s funny how in social media the “release” form is not a normal occurrence in most cases. I think it’s perhaps because it feels more like something “amongst friends” than “between businesses”. Good points to consider my friend.
David
Have I just been brandjacked in this post!?
Just teasing, thanks for the mention Geoff.
Linda: I suppose you were, though as I understand it, it’s editorial versus advertising where the grief really comes into play.
I hope all the tweeps in this Tekzilla show won’t go after me as well:
http://revision3.com/tekzilla/atkevinrose/
in this case, it’s editorial, but you might also argue that Tekzilla is a sponsored show so they are making money etc…
anyway, interesting conversation.