Beware the EVIL Tweeters! The Wild West of User-Generated Content

One day hailed as "flavour of the day" on social messaging site Twitter, the next day Skittled!

When Skittles redesigned their Web site to allow visitors to fill their page with "tweets" via twitter they got a lot of buzz.

But quickly things turned bad when EVIL Tweeters- Skittlers who were supposed to be talking up Skittles filled the page with inappropriate and profanity-laced comment.

Here's a sample of some of the milder ones:

• "To all friends chatting re “Skittles” - be aware that is also the street name for cold meds done to excess - poor man PCP, Lucky Charms."
• "Congratulations, Skittles, on lowering (raising?) the bar for terrible ideas http://skittles.com/ "
• "#skittles is doing a very nifty thing, but i’m still not going to eat them, they always tasted way too much like rocks."
• "You are way out of date on today’s fast-moving Internet. That Skittlesthing is *so* six hours ago."
• "My favorite candy is a frozen Three Musketeer bar. What is yours? I bet you NOT ONE person says Skittles."

Brand Keys President Passikoff said that the campaign brought to light consumer sentiment about the brand based on freedom of speech on the Internet. "The good news is there is freedom of speech, and the bad news is there is freedom of speech."

Skittles lost control of the conversation, but --they still are part of the conversation.