There was an sudden boost in searches for Cyprus yesterday. The reason for that was a bug in Twinkle – a Twitter client for iPhone. For some reason, Twinkle was identifying current location wrong for a whole lot of users. Instead of being somewhere in the States, they were said to be Nicosia, Cyprus. That probably felt very surprising for them, especially considering the fact that not many of them knew what or where Nicosia, Cyprus was. Hence, all the searching.
There is a rumor going around that it was the work of Cyprus government, desperately trying to keep tourism levels up. You, of course, should believe whatever your tin foil hat tells you to believe…
Indeed! I have tracking on for Nicosia and Cyprus and must have gotten at least 20 messages so far regarding this bug!
Really strange. I wonder who’s handywork that was :)
I just started getting that same problem, too. At least it’s not just me.
Has anyone found a solution yet?
That’s funny – I managed to fix it when I first installed twinkle. Now it’s back and my sunny Sydney location has been moved to Nicosia, Cyprus.
I’ve always wanted to visit there.
Paul,
if you’ll be coming to Cyprus, I’d suggest either Limassol or Agia Napa, not Nicosia. Nicosia, being a city in the middle of the island is not a big tourist destination.