US ad firm Pontiflex sees its Twitter feed ‘go nuts’ thanks to similar name to Pope’s

By Trevor Mogg Published December 5, 2012

Whether it turns out to be a blessing or a curse is anyone’s guess, but Brooklyn-based mobile advertising firm Pontiflex seems to be dealing with the sudden interest in its Twitter feed with some humor, at least. And why the sudden interest? Its Twitter name, @pontiflex, happens to be one letter different from that of a certain Pope Benedict XVI, who joined Twitter earlier this week with the name @pontifex.

“Suddenly our Twitter started going nuts,” Pontiflex CEO Zephrin Lasker told Crain’s New York Business.

Recommended Videos

When the Pope popped up on the microblogging site on Monday, his hordes of religious followers wasted no time in becoming his Twitter followers too, with many thousands joining his feed in a matter of hours. A few, however, evidently needed a guiding hand of sorts to lead them in the right direction, having become inadvertent followers of a mobile advertising firm instead of the head of the Catholic church.

“Some people are genuinely kind of confused, and other people get it right away and are making jokes. One letter makes a big difference, I guess,” Lasker said.

At one point the mobile advertising company’s Twitter feed was gathering as many as 75 new followers an hour, prompting Lasker to tweet “We are deeply humbled by the surge of new followers today. But if you’re looking for tweets from the Pope please follow @pontifex” in an effort to point people in the right direction.

While @pontiflex currently has a modest 1350 followers – presumably mistaken Twitter users didn’t hang around too long – the Pope has gathered almost half a million followers in just a couple of days, despite not yet having posted a single tweet.

And in case you happened to be wondering what’s in a letter, the word pontifex comes from Latin and refers to any member of the supreme college of priests in ancient Rome, whereas Pontiflex came from a guy in New York who knew that the Latin word for ‘bridge’ was ‘pont’ and wanted to work it into the name of his company, which he set up four years ago.

Asked about a connection between the Pope and his industry, Lasker mused, “The Catholic Church has billions of followers, and there are billions of mobile phone users. I think that’s the biggest similarity between us.”

[via Ad Age] [Image: PIXXart / Shutterstock]

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Twitter

Social Media

X wants to stop creators from farming stolen viral clips for easy money

The platform is reducing payouts for users accused of reposting stolen content and gaming engagement.

For years now, X has quietly rewarded one of the internet’s most annoying business models: stealing someone else’s content, reposting it faster, slapping “BREAKING” on top, and farming millions of impressions before the original creator even realizes what happened. Now, the platform finally seems ready to crack down on that entire ecosystem.

X says repost farmers and clickbait accounts are losing payouts

Social Media

The police have entered the chat and they want social media bans for users under 16

From private messaging to weak age checks, UK police want six dangerous features gone for kids.

a boy using iPhone

UK law enforcement is done waiting for tech companies to sort themselves out. The National Crime Agency (NCA) and National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) have jointly called for children under 16 to be blocked from any social media, gaming apps, or AI that fails to disable what they describe as "high-risk" features.

This comes as the UK government is actively consulting on whether to introduce a full social media ban for under-16 users, per the BBC.

Social Media

Social media is stealing your happiness one scroll at a time

The more time you spend scrolling, the more your happiness takes a hit.

Social Media Apps

Doom-scrolling is the worst. The mind-numbing spiral starts with "just five minutes" and ends an hour or three later with you feeling somehow worse about your life than before. I had to delete Instagram from my iPhone just to stop myself from wasting hours every night.

If you have also felt that feeling of despair after a scrolling session, it turns out that feeling is backed by science. The World Happiness Report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, has found a clear link between excessive social media use and declining wellbeing. And it's hitting younger people, especially girls, in the Western world, the hardest.