What Is a Dickbar?

Dave Winer:

Being from the East Coast, as I am, I recognize the term “dickbar” as an eastcoastism. It refers to a new feature in Twitter for the iPhone which brings the first instream advertising to the eyeballs of Twitter users. It’s the kind of thing a guy from Philly, Gruber, who roots for the Yankees might say. As far as I know he coined the term.

Coin it I did. What’s funny to me is that I’d never think of it as an eastcoastism — but that’s because I’ve lived my entire life on the East Coast, and that’s just how I talk. Winer picks up on these things because he’s a native New Yorker but spent a long time living in the Bay Area.

Gruber is referring to the first rumblings of the promised business model from Chicagoan Dick Costolo, the (relatively) new CEO of Twitter. He, I conclude is 1/2 of the “dick” in dickbar.

Update: For what it’s worth, I was only thinking “dick as in dick move”; that it works on two levels, as a reference to Costolo, is a happy coincidence.

I love the search stream for “#dickbar”. It warms my heart.

Sunday, 6 March 2011