Letter to Moonfruit about their #moonfruit contest and Twitter's search problem

Web site company Moonfruit is having a contest on Twitter where people are encouraged to include #moonfruit in their tweets, with each such tweet being an entry into their random daily drawing. Problem is, Twitter’s search index is not properly tracking everyone. For example, my tweets (those with #moonfruit or without) have not shown up in Twitter’s search index for almost ten days. So is Moonfruit using that faulty index from which to find their pool of #moonfruit contest entries? My attempts to find out (by tweeting questions to @moontweet, who seems to be answering other questions freely) have been unsuccessful. So I went to their website and sent the following message using their contact form:

Hi,

Your @moontweet person seems to be ignoring my inquiries, and I’m just wondering if you have figured out some way to deal with the fact that unknown thousands of people’s tweets are not currently indexed by Twitter search. (See: http://ow.ly/gnUE)

Perhaps you are using some other index for your #moonfruit contest; again, no one has replied to my many queries. But if you are using’s Twitter’s own search index, then you are essentially defrauding a huge number of people, who are being told by your contest page that their #moonfruit tweets are entries in the contest, when actually they are not.

If you are using Twitter’s search index, and if there is a known problem with that index, then you are unfairly taking advantage of the many people who are promoting your company with no possibility of winning a prize for their efforts. I believe that is something that should be addressed by you. And if not by you, then maybe the Twitterverse can decide what to do about it for you.

Given how quickly your @moontweet person has chosen to reply to others’ tweeted questions, I have concluded that I am being ignored by them. And of course I don’t show up in Twitter search, so my protests and queries are unheard by most. But if I don’t hear back from you on this issue, I am going to take measures to bring it to very public light. I really don’t like the idea that you have all these people tweeting ads for you 24/7, and a big chunk of them aren’t being tracked and don’t even know it.

Please tell me I’m wrong; tell me your contest index shows the #moonfruit tweets that I posted as @FreelanceLance. That’s all I want to know, that mine and others’ entries are actually being treated as entries, as your contest promises.

I would appreciate a reply to this email as soon as possible. Thank you.

-Lance Brown
lance@lancebrown.me