When is an own goal really an own goal?

So it's been a week of The Man apparently getting his comeuppance from Joe Public.

First of all there was the case of the United Guitars scandal - Alex Bainbridge has plenty to say on it - and now it appears that Simonseeks founder Simon Nixon has found himself in hot water in The Sun for comments he made on Twitter.

Back in May, Nixon - co-founder of the Moneysupermarket brand, which later spawned the Travelsupermarket meta search giant) - Tweeted some comments during a visit to Marbella.

The Tweet has since been removed from his Twitter stream (as Nixon confirmed to us today), but they apparently went something like this:

"The crowds are a mix of tattooed cockneys, drunken golfers and bucket-and-spade families."

He also went on to make reference [this time, not deleted] to the age range of some of the holidaymakers in-resort, likening them to "fossils". He even posted a Twitpic of the moment.

Six weeks later and The Sun runs with this typically provocative story...

The piece quotes a "city expert" who says Nixon's comments could be a Gerald Ratner moment - the infamous case when the proprietor mocked his own products, a gaffe of such epic proportions that the jewellery empire he ran at the time imploded.

In Nixon's case, it would be amazing to think that the comments would ruin Moneysupermarket (there is, interestingly, no mention of Simonseeks in the piece).

First of all, The Sun's story is about a Twitter comment six weeks beforehand. In other words, very old (in Tweetland) and low penetration.

And secondly, the world has moved on a fair bit since the Ratner incident 1991 and, frankly, people say daft things all the time in social media.

This is not to say that Nixon should be ignored, but there is probably a far greater degree of taking the comments with 'a pinch of salt' than previously.

Twitter, in other words, lends itself to that laissez-faire attitude to public comments.

Nevertheless, Nixon to his credit has apologised both in the original story in The Sun and via Twitter and the story will probably end there. Moneysupermarket/Simonseeks will not suffer and hordes of tattooed cockneys, drunken golfers and bucket-and-spade families will probably not be offended.

In contrast, the United Guitars saga is getting the knickers of the Twit and Blogerati in a right twist.

But the reality is that the 'complaint' has probably done more to boost the profile of Canadian rockers Sons of Maxwell than it has impacted on the ticket sales of United Airlines.

We would surmise that neither of the incidents are own goals at all. Just temporary blips at most and/or unintended (possibly!) PR opportunities.