AmazonFAIL: Twitter’s power to destroy

Online Media giant Amazon.com recently experienced the wrath of Twitter as thousands of people rallied to show their dismay when the company deleted the sales rank of “hundreds of gay- and lesbian-themed books.”

From the Church of the Customer Blog:
“Amazon recently deleted the sales rankings of hundreds of gay- and lesbian-themed books. Writer Mark Probst blogged about the de-ranking and was told by an Amazon representative that the company will no longer include sales ranks for “adult” material on the site.”

Word soon spread across the Twitterverse (Don’t you just find these Twitterisms annoying?) and virtually within hours a global online community sang in unison: It is time to teach the big guns a lesson.

Probst’s blog post was dated Sunday, April 12 at 2:08 am. In 24 hours, here’s a quick look at how things developed:

Twitter: Users begin using the hashtag #AmazonFAIL. It was the number-one trending topic on Twitter search all day. After an Amazon spokesperson told CNET news that the de-ranking was “a glitch in our system and is being fixed,” Twitterers responded with a new hashtag: #glitchmyass.

Blogs: Over 5000 15 000 blog posts about the news. It was the top story on the widely read Techmeme.
Facebook. The AmazonFail Group launched, quickly gathering 1,200 3700 members out of the gate.
Online petitions.

Online petitions sprang up protesting the “adult” policy. One gathered more than 9,000 25 663 signatures in a few hours’ time.

Google bomb: A blogger launched a campaign to redefine “Amazon rank” on Google. It’s working. This page is #2 in the search rankings.

Hacking: Protesters started tagging the de-ranked books on Amazon site with #AmazonFAIL. At last count, 882 1500 books were tagged.

Logos: People created logos for the protest.

Merchandise: #glitchmyass boxer shorts, t-shirts and other apparel are for sale!

Complaint templates: Customers wanting to complain and who need writing help can use this pre-crafted complaint letter.

Boycotts: Customers on Twitter and blogs are talking boycott.

Over 335 885 mainstream media articles related to this story, including Wall Street Journal, Wired, and NPR.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that the “cataloging error” was the result of a single Amazon employee in France who flipped the wrong switch, causing over 50,000 books to be flagged as “adult.” This is according to an anonymous source inside the company.

But Amazon’s customers are having none of it. It’s not difficult to see why so many businesses long back to the days before the internet considering that an alleged “mistake” could get you punished in a very unceremonious and indeed costly manner.

It also seems rather time consuming to go to these sort of lengths to have your voice heard, doesn’t it? Just when did the human become so annoyingly spiteful? I’ll tell you when…

When the opportunity arose to jump on a bandwagon. There’s a smarter saying for that: “Monkey see, monkey do.” Unfortunately, as always, word of mouth carries exceptional credibility. Only these days, one idiot’s opinion has the ability to reach so many more idiots on such a frequent basis that it has become critical to keep an eye on them.

So when was the last time you had a look at the conversations around your brand?