Don’t feel bad if you’ve ever sent a private direct message as a public tweet—Twitter executives do it, too.
On Monday, Twitter’s CFO Anthony Noto joined former U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner (D-New York) and former PayPal executive Rakesh Argawal in the DM fail hall of fame.
Noto tweeted out what appears to be a message for a colleague about an acquisition, and a meeting on Dec. 15 or 16 to discuss the possible purchase.
“I still think we should buy them,” he tweeted. “He’s on your schedule for Dec 15 or 16—we will need to sell him. I have a plan.”
Noto deleted the tweet, but not before Kevin Roose, a reporter at Fusion, grabbed a screenshot.
Twitter has made promises to revamp the direct messaging feature, and recent updates like the ability to send links in private messages again show that the company is focusing on the most neglected part of the service. Perhaps Noto’s mistake will prompt Twitter to make some changes a bit faster.
Some tech insiders on Twitter are having fun with the flub.
https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/537025143352987648
https://twitter.com/cap/status/537030222236110848
Pretty good way to drive DM growth if you ask me. Never knew you were a growth hacker @anthonynoto. :)
— Megan Quinn (@msquinn) November 24, 2014
Photo by TechCrunch/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)