Tweet your way to an MBA: Innovation or gimmick?

The buzz and backlash came quickly.

The University of Iowa's Henry B. Tippie College of Business recently announced that it had swapped an essay question with a call for tweets. My story gives the details:

On Twitter, folks responded. Some called it a creative idea. "How crisp," one said. But others labeled it a gimmick. One guy (@andrewerose) said this:

Now, the University of Iowa blames some of the backlash on people not fully understanding the contest's rules. As I noted in my story, the tweet is one part of a larger application -- not the only part.

What do you think? Is the business school's call for tweets a genius idea that responds to the changing marketplace? Or an attempt to manufacture buzz?