There are many geek versions of a social media “first kiss.” Remember when you started sending email? I don’t recall mine but Mike Harkey insists I was the recipient of his first back in 1995. Last year when i learned about a friend’s divorce via Facebook newsfeed it was the first time that something so previously private and serious became an update item alongside superpokes and friends for sale.

So this week when i got my first unprompted but relevant commercial tweet i gave it a bit of pause. After tweeting about my attempts to priceline a cheap room in napa, NapaMarriott @’ed me an offer to stay with them. I can imagine that at scale this turns into spam — i don’t want contextually relevant offers based on all my tweets – but in this case an employee working excitedly to attract new customers in the midst of their research/purchase cyle? Pretty cool….