Journalists know better than most that comments made in public are rarely off the record. That's why a Twitter feed started last week by an anonymous staffer within the hallowed halls of Condé Naste's headquarters in New York made for such captivating reading.
A feed of tidbits overheard in the lift of the publishing house that counts Vogue magazine among its bestsellers was posted on @CondeElevator. It quickly accumulated more than 75,000 followers and in recent days juddered to a surprise emergency stop - but not before the following tweet was posted:
"Girl #1: I love that necklace, I saw it at Banana last week and almost bought it too. Girl #2: [flips hair] This is Gucci."
The feed spawned copycats galore, notably from the rival media company Hearst, which claimed to have better tweets than Condé Nast because its building had "better elevators".
However, the lift gossip from the publisher of Harper's Bazaar and Cosmopolitan failed to press the right buttons with the public and fewer than 1,000 people clicked "follow".
Not to be outdone, a banker at Goldman Sachs entered the Twitter tussle, attracting more than 2,800 followers. Speaking anonymously to The New York Times, the author said she wanted to lift the lid on "how shallow the industry really is". A classic lift comment being: "[NYC] 'You can't spell genius without a G and a S' (not said in jest)".
