Tower Bridge Twitter Feed Is Suspended

M@
By M@ Last edited 153 months ago
Tower Bridge Twitter Feed Is Suspended

A Twitter account which chronicled the lifting and closing of Tower Bridge has been prised away from its owner.

The @towerbridge feed was set up in 2008 as a small experiment by Tom Armitage of the Infovore site. He used live data from the bridge to automatically Tweet out every time the bridge opened, including the name of the vessel passing through. This useless but fun service was followed by over 4,000 people and received mainstream press attention. If nothing else, it offered a simple visualisation of ebb and flow in this small part of the city.

Tom was recently informed that the account is 'in violation of Twitter's trademark policy'. It has now been terminated and transferred to an official representative of the attraction. He was given no opportunity to appeal:

What I’m really, really annoyed by is this: I have not been giving opportunity to clear up the potential confusion. I’ve just had the account suspended, the username taken, and, well, that’s it.

Interestingly, there's evidence that Tower Bridge isn't the only local landmark involved in trademark dispute. We notice that the popular Shard restaurant on Tooley Street, which once sported a letter 'A' shaped like the emerging tower, has renamed as The Shad.

Last Updated 13 June 2011