Welcome to What’s Trending In Payments – a weekly look at the most popular, irreverent and important stories the payments industry had to offer over the past five days. Which companies grabbed the most headlines – for better or for worse – this week, and which topics have the industry abuzz with intrigue, laughter or disbelief?
Featuring breakdowns from the PYMNTS.com staff and commentary by Karen Webster, here’s our take on what all of you payments peeps thought.
Chase Battles Chase Over Twitter Handle
Why It’s Hot: Guy named Chase can command $20k for the Twitter handle @chase and probably could have gotten more from the bank named Chase. This shows how valuable Twitter handles have come for marketing. Who would have thought that Twitter handles would start selling like URLs? Then Twitter turns around, takes it from man named Chase and hands it over to the bank Chase. Some might say it shows that Twitter knows where its bread is buttered.
Karen’s Commentary: Yup, its time to dump on Twitter now that they’re joining the $1 billion club. Man named Chase got slammed because he was—they say—using something that looked like the Bank named Chase logo to fuel complaints about the bank. And call me a sap, but I’m feeling sorry these days for Chase, which has more lawsuits against it than I have shoes. And that’s saying something. Really makes you want to be successful, doesn’t it?
Pinterest Fights For Coveted Pin Prefix
Why It’s Hot: Newbie Pinterest has become so massively successful it can hire lawyers to prevent other companies from using pins.
Karen’s Commentary: I’m with Pinterest. They had an original idea, a great name, incredible concept. Pintrips went out of there way to not just use the concept of a pin—that would be ok in my book—but come up with a name that sounds just like Pinterest, could confuse the heck out of people and gives them a free ride on all the blood, sweat, tears, and money that went into novel social network.
PYMNTS commentary: No one is worrying about paying off the heirs of Walter Hunt (inventor of the safety pin in 1849), who sold his patent to in 1849 (for the equivalent of $900 in today’s dollars). If you ask me, they are the ones who really have the beef.
Twitter Helps Penny Stock To Best-Ever Week
Why It’s Hot: Careless people investing in stocks. Sounds like a bubble to us.
Karen’s Commentary: Why isn’t Tweeter suing the you-know-what-out of Twitter for stealing the Tweet from Tweeter and confusing people with the Twitter/Tweeter thing. After all, Tweeter has been around for a whole lot longer than Twitter.
PYMNTS: So, here’s a plan. Tweeter should hire Pinterests lawyers, go after Twitter, and make enough to claw themselves out of bankruptcy.
Top Tweet: .@znmeb: @reformedbroker Saps Looking For Twitter Bounce Penny Stock 1,400%
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