It looked like the day that social media had been waiting for had finally arrived. #TwitterMeetsArnab was trending. And rumours about the Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami joining Twitter almost broke the microblogging site as people looked for ways to hide, mute and also welcome Goswami to 140-character stardom.

And then the handle @ARNABGOSWAMl became the focal point of attention, as the profile, complete with the famous anchor's face, seemed to be in character: it was even spelt out in all caps. So strong was the buzz that it went on to acquire more than 40,000 followers in a short span of time. Many were clearly convinced that it was the real McCoy.

Except for one small detail: the last letter of the handle is a lower-case 'L' not I. A tweet from a fellow journalist soon confirmed the news.



The hashtag  #TwitterMeetsArnab was of course just a clever piece of marketing by Times Now as Twitter CEO Dick Costolo was visiting the channel's office for an interaction. Times Now has also been touting its popularity on Twitter a lot over the last few weeks, frequently announcing the number of tweets it manages to generate through its hashtags that are always being flashed on the channel.

The hashtag #TwitterMeetsArnab of course was helped along by some of the selfies around the event that also did the rounds on Twitter.

Attempts to reach the Newshour anchor, however, remained unsuccessful.

In addition to the misspelling, the very fact that @ARNABGOSWAMl remained silent throughout should have been a straight giveaway.  But Twitter was happy to even take the clearly fake account in its stride, and merrily went about doing what it does best: not keep calm, but carry on.