A conference aimed at showing ways to make money off the hot social network Twitter will debut in Washington on Thursday.
That was news Tuesday to a lawyer who represents the San Francisco-based company.
When told about the conference by The Examiner, Connie Ellerbach, a partner at Fenwick & West, which represents Twitter Inc., said she was unaware of “The Cool Twitter Conferences World Tour” and confirmed that using the name Twitter in such a manner without authorization would mean “there certainly is a trademark violation.”
The conference and planned tour is the brainchild of Robert Fine, a Washington-area man looking “to pay my bills” after getting laid off this spring from his job as an information technology director at the nonprofit Conservation International.
Fine told The Examiner that after receiving his layoff notice, he began “experimenting” with Twitter, concocted a few product ideas, and took them to Kent Fowler. In 2000, the men had opened the Cool Blue Co., an information technology business that never really took off.
Now they’ve resurrected Cool Blue and plan to take the Twitter conference to 17 cities worldwide as its first big endeavor. “We wanted to be the first ones on the East Coast to do this,” Fowler said.
Fine doesn’t believe that Twitter Inc. needs to be involved. “ ‘Twitter’ at this point is a verb,” he said. “It’s more of a platform than a product.” But Fine said he was unsure whether or not he was “violating some trademark issue.”
Individuals will pay from $195 – $295 to attend the all-day conference Thursday at Busboys & Poets on 14th Street Northwest. It opens at 8 a.m. with a “Twitter Beginner Boot Camp,” followed by an informal discussion with roughly 15 professionals in diverse industries who will address how they have used Twitter in their careers.
Brian Dresher, a member of the online marketing team at USA Today, will be one of the speakers. Dresher said he didn’t realize Twitter Inc. had been unaware of the conference, though that “would not affect” his decision to participate.
Said Fine: “If you asked me a week ago if I was going to have 20 people to this thing, I would have had no idea.” He now expects a full house of 100 or more.
For information on the conference, go to cooltwitterconferences.com. For the latest news from the Washington Examiner via twitter Follow Us at twitter.com/dcexaminer.
