From www.allyourtv.com- Twitter has become a regular way for local television stations to promote their latest “hot” stories. Unfortunately, sometimes things can go horribly wrong.

The twitter account “ABC7weather” tweeted a weather update on Sunday that included a link to what was supposed to be the latest weather forecast. Instead, it linked to a soft porn shot of some woman’s mostly-bare thong-clad bottom.

As you can see in the screen grab above, the link is a tinyurl, which is often used as a way to make a long url short enough to fit in posts such as the 140-character limitations faced in Twitter.

As it turns out, the tiny url is forwarded to this photobucket url:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y199/Debra_GG/Vegas_2005_Cropped/c_blue_chair_ass_thong.jpg

No, don’t click the link. You really don’t want to see it.

The “Debra_GG” photobucket account is set to private, so I wasn’t able to determine if it belonged to someone at the station, or if it was just an unlucky mistyping of the tinyurl web address.

At one point in my career, I spent three years as the managing editor of an NBC owned-and-operated TV web site. So I do have a lot of sympathy for the ease in which something embarrassing can happen (and the amount of grief that will take place after the discovery).

I called the station’s breaking news phone line, and after a bit of confusion over who might be responsible for the twitter account, I spoke with Alan, who was identified as the current web guy on duty. I passed along the info, and I suspect his evening just much more unpleasant. At that point the tweet had been live for about three hours, but it disappeared soon after our conversation.

I do feel sympathy for whomever made this mistake. It’s a lousy way to start a new week.