Twitter Hall Of Fame

Arijit Guha (@Poop_Strong)

Thu, 02 Aug 2012 19:33:00 -0400

Social media channels like Twitter are great venues for venting, but our gripes often go unheard. Not so for Arizona State University graduate student Arijit Guha. He took to Twitter to complain about the limits of his health insurance. The reward for his rants: Aetna will cover “every last penny” of his treatment for colon cancer.

Guha initially went online to raise money for his treatments after reaching the $300,000 lifetime benefits on his student health insurance plan. But he eventually engaged Aetna chairman and CEO Mark Bertolini (@mtbert) on Twitter. Bertolini argued policy with Guha at the outset but ultimately vowed to work to “fix the system” from the inside.

“I am glad we connected today and got this issue solved,” Bertolini wrote. “I appreciate the dialog no matter how pointed. I’ve got it and own it!”

Patch (@DeidreCA)

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:53:12 -0400

Dog’s best friend is a man with a Twitter account — at least when the pooch is lost. The information network helped reunite a Jack Russell terrier named Patch with his owner Deidre Anglin, after the dog took a ride on the Irish Rail.

After Patch’s 20-mile ride from Kilcock to Dublin, word of his arrival at the last station quickly spread across Twitter when Irish Rail posted a “Lost dog!” tweet and a photo. The tweet generated more than 500 retweets over 32 minutes, and Anglin saw it.

Irish Rail later tweeted a reunion photo of owner and pet (above), and Anglin shared snapshots of Patch on the way home.

Lyle Denniston (#teamlyle)

Thu, 28 Jun 2012 09:35:02 -0400

Lyle Denniston, a journalist who has covered the Supreme Court for more than a half-century, doesn’t even use Twitter after briefly giving it a try last year. But his name will be all over the site today as the court announces its decision on the constitutionality of President Obama’s healthcare law.

Denniston is one of the rare few whose reputation has earned him a Twitter hashtag — and rarer still considering he is an 81-year-old journalist for a relatively obscure blog that on most days is read primarily by lawyers. His fans hope to make him popular enough that the #teamlyle hashtag starts trending.

Joyce Grendel (@joycee_emily)

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:54:47 -0400

Ohio teenager Joyce Grendel has much more class than Mike Stone, the Minnesota teen who invited porn stars to his high school prom. When Grendel’s prom date backed out at the last minute, she asked her Cleveland Browns hero, Joe Haden, to escort her instead — and he drove her in style in his white Lamborghini.

Haden also tweeted photos of the night to his 86,500 fans, including the one in this post. “I knew her because she tweets me a lot, and she’s been a really good Haden Nation supporter,” he said. “All my autographs, all my signings, she always shows up.”

Chris Newton (@NewtyIce)

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:33:52 -0400

What’s a teenager to do when he gets to an autograph event and realizes he doesn’t have the fat wallet necessary to enter? Tweet about it, of course. Chris Newton did, and New England Patriots linebacker Brandon Spikes came to the rescue of Newton and his three friends (@Dylan_DiNatale, @hunt_30 and @Blackewalker11) in a green Porsche.

Spikes was at the event the four young men wanted to attend. When Newton tweeted about their dilemma by mentioning Spikes’ Twitter handle, Spikes told them to look for him in his car. He quietly gave them each $100, but the story eventually made its way to Twitter — and then the traditional press.

Lauren Lane (@laurenlane1984)

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 11:34:00 -0500

When Lauren Lane’s plans to wed Daniel Welch were threatened by the collapse of the British events company organizing her big day, she turned to Twitter for help: “Please RT to help our story! £4.5k stolen with 6 weeks to go - need a little help from our twitter friends.”

Lane’s online appeal worked, as even two celebrities retweeted it. Companies offered Lane and Welch free or discounted services for the wedding, which occurred Feb. 25. “”It just goes to show the power of Twitter,” Lane said. “As soon as I posted my message on the website everything just went crazy.”

The downside of her sudden Twitter fame: Media coverage that Lane felt made the couple look like moochers. “Can’t believe the story on the mail online! £10k in donations? We didn’t get any money! Will be having words in the am!”

Brad Keselowski (@keselowski)

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:22:26 -0500

NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski gained more than 100,000 followers in two hours while live-tweeting from his car during the Sprint Cup’s premier race, the Daytona 500. From his car, he tweeted a now-famous picture of a fire on the track while the race was delayed.

Some observers wondered whether Keselowski had violated a NASCAR rule against recording devices in cars during races. But NASCAR said he and other racers can keep cell phones in their cars and encouraged them to use social media “as long as they do so without risking their safety or that of others.”

AnnMarie Walsh (@padschicago)

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 22:07:00 -0500

AnnMarie Walsh found a home by tweeting about her homelessness. She also was featured in a teaser for a documentary about Twitter and traveled to Los Angeles for a speaking gig at the “140 Characters Conference” focused on Twitter.

Walsh told the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago newspaper, that she has recruited other homeless people to Twitter. “Twitter is our community. Anytime something comes up, you can tweet. There’s always somebody there.” Daniel Morales, a homeless man in New York, reunited with his daughter thanks to Twitter.

Emma Sullivan (@emmakate988)

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:41:00 -0500

Emma Sullivan never expected to be making headlines during her senior year in high school, but she became a media sensation after a tweet that mocked Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (@govsambrownback). “Just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot,” she tweeted while representing her school at a Youth in Government event.

That outburst caught the attention of Brownback’s staff, and someone complained to Sullivan’s school. The school at first demanded that she write a letter of apology to Brownback but reversed that decision after the Twitter community rallied around Sullivan and mocked Brownback.

The governor ultimately apologized, and Sullivan’s following on Twitter soared from a few dozen to more than 15,000 in a few days. The down side to her sudden fame: She became a target for Twitter bullying and critical commentary.

UPDATE, Dec. 5: As more information about this Twitter controversy becomes available, Sullivan is looking like a co-candidate with Brownback for the Twitter Hall of Shame. One newspaper columnist noted that her original tweet was a lie.

Mona El Tahawy (@monaeltahawy)

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:05:00 -0500

Turning to Twitter is becoming second nature for people who personally feel the brunt of government crackdowns in the Middle East. Journalist Mona El Tahawy, a central information source during protests in Egypt, is the latest example.

El Tahawy tweeted that she was “Beaten arrested in interior ministry.” The next day, after a global outcry, she tweeted, “I AM FREE” and shared the details of her ordeal. She also thanked the political activist who lent her the phone she used to write the tweet that inspired the hashtag #freemona. Mathew Ingram of GigaOm credited the Twitter community with fostering her rescue.

George Overbey (@groverbey)

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 16:23:00 -0400

Be bold when you tweet at celebrities. Oklahoma State University senior George Overbey was, and he got to play flag football game with a professional basketball star and scored coverage on ESPN’s “SportsCenter.”

Overbey found his way into the spotlight by replying to a tweet by National Basketball Association star Kevin Durant, who was seeking a football game to break the boredom of the NBA lockout. Durant stunned Overbey and the sports world when he accepted the offer. “Social media really is amazing,” Overbey tweeted the day after the game.

UPDATE, Dec. 1: The Durant tweet that led to him joining Overbey’s flag football game earned the No. 4 spot on Twitter’s list of the top 10 tweets of 2011.

Irene Tien (@Irene)

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:11:00 -0400

For one weekend only, the real @irene became the @irene on most people’s minds — Hurricane Irene. Irene Tien, ironically a product strategist at a digital media firm, gave control of her Twitter account to her colleagues so they could assume the identity of the storm to share warnings and laughs.

Ross Morrison (@Inconsolable) and Bjorn Larsen (@bjorn) were the creative minds behind the tweets. Their work attracted enough attention that the Federal Emergency Management Agency reached out to them to share safety information about weathering the storm.

(Hat tip to Carl Lavin)

Stefanie Gordon (@stefmara)

Wed, 25 May 2011 07:17:00 -0400

Stefanie Gordon was in the right airspace at the right time on a clear Monday morning earlier this month. The unemployed event planner snapped and tweeted a photo of the space shuttle Endeavor soon after it broke through the white clouds on its journey into space.

The next thing she knew, she was “an instant ‘15-minute celebrity’ for a few pictures I took with my phone.” She had so many media interview that she didn’t even find time to write her version of the story until a few days later, and the viral spread of her photos across the Internet raised questions about intellectual property theft.

UPDATE, Dec. 1: Gordon’s tweeted photo earned the No. 6 spot on Twitter’s list of the top 10 tweets of 2011.

Sohaib Athar (@ReallyVirtual)

Mon, 02 May 2011 21:57:00 -0400

One well-timed tweet, even in the middle of the night, is all it takes to achieve momentary fame. So it is for Sohaib Athar, who “unwittingly” told the world that Osama bin Laden was about to die.

“Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event),” Athar tweeted as U.S. Navy seals targeted the compound in Pakistan that they believed housed bin Laden. By the time the choppers left, the world’s most wanted terrorist was dead.

Athar was amused by the way the media characterized his tweet. He wrote: “Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it. … I apologize for reporting the operation ‘unwittingly/unknowingly’ - had I known about it, I would have tweeted about it ‘wittingly’ I swear.”

UPDATE, Dec. 1: One of Athar’s tweets earned the No. 2 spot on Twitter’s list of the top 10 tweets of 2011.

Keith Urbahn (@keithurbahn)

Mon, 02 May 2011 12:07:00 -0400

If you want to break news on Twitter, it pays to know people in high news places. Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (@RumsfeldOffice), heard about the killing of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden from a television news producer and ironically reported the news first on Twitter — about an hour before President Obama issue a public statement.

While Urbahn downplayed the significance of his post, it became known as “the tweet heard ‘round the world,” with many reports citing it as the latest proof that Twitter can be used as a tool for breaking news.

UPDATE, Dec. 7: Time magazine chose Urbahn’s tweet as the the best of 2011.

Daniel Morales (@putodanny)

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 13:05:00 -0500

Cell phone, Twitter, homeless man and a long lost daughter — those were the ingredients for a technologically inspired reunion.

Daniel Morales hadn’t seen his daughter, Sarah Rivera, in more than a decade. Then Underheard in New York, a project whose goal is “fighting homelessness 140 characters at a time,” gave him and three other homeless men at the New York City Rescue Mission cell phones and Twitter accounts to document their lives.

Three weeks later, Morales tweeted information aimed at finding Rivera. A stranger who saw the tweets contacted Rivera, and the rest is Twitter history.

UPDATE, Dec. 1: One of Morales’ tweets earned the No. 3 spot on Twitter’s list of the top 10 tweets of 2011.

Wael Ghonim (@Ghonim)

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:01:00 -0500

Wael Ghonim no doubt would object to being recognized in the Twitter Hall of Fame. “Please don’t turn me into a hero. I’m not a hero,” the Google marketing manager pleaded after being released as a captive in Egypt’s democratic uprising. “The heroes are the ones who were out on the street.”

But like it or not, Ghonim became the face of the movement. His social-networking leadership before he was arrested in Cairo emboldened Egyptians to go to the streets, and his release gave them even more reason to rally.

UPDATE, Feb. 13: “If there was no social networks,” Ghonim told CBS’ “60 Minutes,” “[the revolution] would have never been sparked. Because the whole thing before the revolution was the most critical thing. Without Facebook, without Twitter, without Google, without YouTube, this would have never happened.”

UPDATE, Dec. 1: One of Ghonim’s tweets earned the No. 1 spot on Twitter’s list of the top 10 tweets of 2011.

Stevie Johnson (@StevieJohnson13)

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 21:22:00 -0500

On Twitter, Stevie Johnson of the Buffalo Bills will be remembered as the athlete who “cried out” to God after dropping a game-winning catch. He dropped the ball in overtime, and the Bills dropped the game 19-16 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Clearly upset by his failure, Johnson wept at his post-game interview and then took his hurt to Twitter in a very public display of “righteous wrath at the heavens.” The all-caps tweet that made him famous (or infamous): “I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND IS THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO.”

UPDATE, Dec. 22: Johnson responded to criticism of his tweet in an interview with the Boston Herald. “I’m thinking I do so much good and give him praise, I didn’t understand why. There’s people out there that are doing bad and good things are happening, but it was a learning thing for me.”

Josh Simpson (@MrJoshSimpson)

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 21:00:00 -0400

For months, the Internet world knew Josh Simpson only by the parody Twitter handle @BPGlobalPR and the quips he published through that anonymous account to mock the company responsible for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Simpson finally revealed himself this week in an interview with The Awl.

He recounted how his work (bolstered by fellow contributors) became a viral Twitter hit: “Roger Ebert retweeted something I said, and then it just didn’t stop growing. That weekend we gained 5,000 followers. It was gaining like 50,000 a week and didn’t start slowing down until about 170,000 or 180,000.”

UPDATE, Dec. 14: One of Simpson’s tweets is featured in Twitter’s list of the top tweets for 2010.

Leigh Fazzina (@LeighFazzina)

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:15:00 -0400

The takeaway from Leigh Fazzina’s Twitter story is simple: Take a smartphone everywhere you go. You never know when you might need to tweet for help after an accident leaves you stranded alone.

While competing in a Connecticut triathlon, Fazzina crashed her bike, rolled down a hill and injured herself badly enough that she needed help to escape. When her yells went unanswered and her phone couldn’t get a call signal, she sent a tweet. Emergency responders were on the scene 18 minutes later.

UPDATE, Dec. 14: Fazzina’s tweet for help landed her a spot in Twitter’s list of top tweets for 2010.