You surely have read it in the main technology blogs and in those which deal with the entertainment industry. If you didn’t, here is the “news”: there was a public dispute among Twitter and AMC about the right for Twitter users to use the names of some AMC’s TV show characters as their avatars.

At first, the cable channel lodged some kind of copyright infringement claim and Twitter received a DMCA takedown notice. Twitter had to suspend the profiles in object.

Some hours later the fight was over and the profiles were restored on Twitter.

Both events (the dispute and the reconciliation) made it into the news and a lot of people talked about these two events, the sum of which is zero.

Probably AMC marketing staff thought that having some profiles on Twitter which used their characters’ names was too weak a news. Or maybe Twitter wanted some co-marketing in order to address the entertainment industry audience.

Anyway, it all resulted in another case of Marketing in disguise, were companies make up a non-news and publishers, who have very little fantasy fill their news reports with bullshits like this (see also this, this and this).

Now we all know about a show called “Mad Men” about a hard-drinking Manhattan ad shop in the 1960s which is already a hit but maybe failed in the web coverage. And tv-maniacs have found out about a web service which lets you “communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent” status updates called Twitter.

Maybe news reporters are cheaper than advertising space…

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