River of Post-Twit Notes Floods Fargo

A veritable yellow-snowstorm of printed 140-character “tweets” dropped from the sky over Fargo, ND yesterday, threatening to overwhelm levees already strained by an ice-clogged river.

The founders of the on-line micro-blogging service Twitter chose Fargo for the unveiling of their new Post-Twit note service, a fusing of old world and new media communications, because “the swollen Red River is the perfect illustration of the massive growth of our Twitterstream – and beside, all the soon-to-be-defunct old media companies were already on the ground to cover the ev [140-character limit exceeded]”

Hundreds of thousands of yellow 3.5 inch square paper notes rained down on the city, each with a 140-character maximum “tweet” printed on it. “It’s the perfect way to introduce all the unwashed masses to Twitter, ” stated Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter.  “A lot of these flyover country folk are still stuck in the old printed paper world, so we figured we’d flood them with micro-messages on Post-it notes, just to get them acclimated to the many advantages of Twittering in a format they’d understand.”

The Post-Twit note initiative came about when Twitter, which has never made any money, applied for federal TARP funds and was granted $150 billion dollars because it was a money-losing operation that was still “very cool!” according to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Twitter quickly bought the bankrupt Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper and decided to merge branding into the new “Post-Twit” format. As a bonus, all former subscribers to the Seattle newspaper will get a free, 140-character summary of the news on a note stuck to their door each day.

Twitter’s bold marketing ploy of blanketing middle America with Post-Twit notes was almost derailed when 3M, the manufacturers of Post-it notes, began unveiling a trademark lawsuit. However, this problem was quickly solved by some creative congressional maneuvering. Using their  $149.95 billion remaining in TARP funds after the newspaper purchase, Twitter submitted its plan to purchase GM. However, Chris Dodd secretly changed “GM” to “3M” in conference negotiations, so instead of an automobile company, Twitter ended up owning all the assets and trademarks of the Post-it note parent company (which will now be renamed “DM”).

Reaction among the Twitterati was decidedly mixed. Guy Kawasaki proclaimed “Holy Kaw!” and immediately launched an Alltop category, while Pete Cashmore of Mashable wondered why they didn’t just drop a bunch of iPhones on the city and be done with it. “Who needs this old technology? With AT&T’s new 4G underwater wi-fi technology, what better opportunity for a co-promotion!” Even former social media user Barack Obama weighed in with some videotaped commentary.

Post-Twit notes gathered out of the floodwaters in Fargo included some gems as, “About to head out to the gym with my new sneakers”, “Haha LOL”, and “Does anyone else have a dead slug on their iPhone screen?” Exhausted residents of Fargo seemed heartened by the attention shown by having multiple airplanes dropping Post-Twit notes all over town, though one polite homeowner indicated that “some help filling sandbags might have been slightly more appropriate under the circumstances. If that’s OK – I mean, we really don’t want to be a bother.”

Twitter next hopes to promote Post-Twittering to Topeka, Kansas, or Dumfries, Iowa, whichever is struck first by a natural or man-made disaster.

Twitter is still in negotiations to purchase old-line communications giant AT&T, which it plans to rename RT&T.

Oh…and Happy April 1st!

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