Not the Real New York Governor

Monday, 03 January 2011 | by Pat's Picks

If you’re on Twitter and following @NYGovernor, it’s a fake. You’re not connected to official updates from Andrew Cuomo.

You’d be forgiven for thinking it was an official account, because the official website of the new governor of New York linked to @NYGovernor on Saturday, even though it didn’t exist.

When a visitor to the official website realized the @NYGovernor Twitter page was still up for grabs, he set up a fake page and quickly amassed almost 500 followers. The governor’s office then had to retool to connect to a real Twitter account at @NYGovCuomo. But something good might come out of having two Twitter lines to Albany: the (fake) Andrew Cuomo promises to reply to any Tweets the (official) Andrew Cuomo doesn’t.

You can read more about the mix up in the New York Times.