Signaling the collapse between friendship and entrepreneurship in the digital age, airlines are cashing in on the Twitter bacchanalia. United Airlines, for instance, set up its "Twares", daily bargain fares for its Twitter followers ("to where you U can eat more mussels (in Brussels)" per the LA Times). JetBlue's version is "Cheeps", which consists of bargain fare tweets on Mondays.
Southwest is the voice of dissent, claiming it will not partake on the Twitter fares because it wants to give equal opportunity to all customers. Right.
On Facebook customers can talk to airline representatives -- provided they become "fans" of the airline. American Airline's first 10,000 fans were awarded 10-percent discounts on tickets.
While eager to incorporate Twitter et al to new business strategies for customer recruitment, there seems to be very little done in terms of actually making the customers' lives easier. How about a simple "UR flight will be 2 hours late" tweet before hopping on that cab?
Internal research has shown airline customers hate getting tons of email with promotions and prefer tweets. But soon tweet management will become an issue as well (and probably a class at USC), as the number of "followers" and tweets become so great they will acquire the repulsiveness of a spam-esque blur. Which brings about another kind of "literacy" in the Internet age: the ability to filter legitimacy from scam.
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