A top Twitter executive fell foul of the curse of the accidental tweet when he sent a post about his plan to buy another firm.
Anthony Noto, chief financial officer at the micro-blogging site, mistakenly tweeted about his plan to buy another company, including when he wanted the deal to take place.
The message was posted on his Twitter account before hastily being deleted, but not before hordes had seen and shared the message.
“I still think we should buy them,” Mr Noto tweeted. “He is on your schedule for Dec 15 or 16 — we will need to sell him. I have a plan.”
Twitter confirmed Mr Noto was trying to send the message privately, but did not say who he was trying to send it to, or which firm it referred to. Tech sources suggested it could be Mic News, a news site targeted at teenagers and twentysomethings.
The “DM fail” — or “direct message fail” — is a common problem on Twitter. Perhaps the most high-profile “DM fail” is US politician Anthony Weiner, who sent a naked photo to his followers rather than to the one woman he intended, and was later forced to resign.
