Twitter is (among other things) a communication medium. To call an innovative use of a communication medium "co-opting" it seems unfair to me; if interesting memes didn't spread through it, it would be a failure. Evan Williams noted in his TED talk that new, unexpected uses of Twitter are exciting and welcome.

Do something remarkable, get remarked about. It seems an honest form of marketing to me.

Agree. What other things is twitter, however?

Apologies for the late reply, MoeDrippins; hopefully you'll see this if you check out your comments list.

I originally wrote that Twitter was a communications medium. But then I considered that people might be offended by Skittles on behalf of the Twitter community, or Twitter the company, and in those ways, Twitter is more than just a communication medium.

I think its importance as a communication medium is paramount.

"Actually, almost none of the conversation about the stuff has to do with any of the things that make Skittles Skittles: It’s just folks mentioning Skittles to get on the Skittles home page."

He clearly misses the point. They're mentioning Skittles and that's effective brand building.

Several of them seem to be mentioning Skittles to build their own 'brand' - online persona/spamming/looking cool/etc

I'm really not sure having your brand associated with spam/abuse/people trying to say idiotic+offensive things, is a good idea personally. It's like a massive bait to get people to abuse your product.

The google serps are already filling up with links between "skittles" and random abusive offensive stuff.

Skittles obviously thinks that mere mentions of Skittles is effective brand-building. I do, however, dispute that mentions are very useful except as a stunt. And surely at some point the association of Skittles with racism, vomiting, etc. doesn't constitute "brand building" in the least.

I totally forgot about Skittles before I saw this, I went to the store today and bought some. They are still awesome and taste like floor wax.