Weekly Comms News Round Up 17/10/2013

This week’s comms news includes a social media Q&A gone wrong, Twitter’s new direct messaging feature as well as the e-book scandal that caused WH Smith to take down their whole website. My weekly pick of top comms stories curated via @CisionUK.

#AskBG British Gas Twitter Q&A Goes As Well As Would Be Expected by @ChrisDYork via The Huffington Post
In a move described as both “brave”and “a terrible PR idea”, British Gas decided to host a Twitter Q&A – on the same day it unveiled a 9.2% price hike.

Why? Presumably in an effort to generate the heat lost by people switching their boilers off as they tighten their purse strings across the country. Suffice to say it went as well as you would expect.

How Twitter’s New DM Will Impact Brand Marketing by @CorpNetNellie via Mashable
As news broke that Twitter is rolling out a new option for its direct message (DM) feature, reactions ranged from indifference to downright panic.

A Twitter user reported that Twitter plans to let users opt in to receive DMs from anyone, regardless whether that person follows back or not. Traditionally, two users had to mutually follow each other for DM to work. Now that no longer has to be the case.

WH Smith takes website offline after porn e-book scandal via The BBC
WH Smith has taken its UK site completely offline until all abuse-themed e-books are removed from its product listings. The move comes after last week’s revelations that Amazon, WH Smith, Barnes & Noble, and other retailers were selling pornographic e-books featuring incest, rape and bestiality on their sites.

WH Smith said it was “disgusted” by such titles and found them “unacceptable”.

Twitter chooses New York Stock Exchange over Nasdaq for IPO by @JulietteGarside via The Guardian
Twitter has chosen the New York Stock Exchange for its forthcoming initial public offering, dealing a blow to the technology-focused Nasdaq market.

The social media group revealed it had picked the larger exchange in an update to its float prospectus, which also showed a bump in advertising revenues but decelerating growth in users.