Welcome to Twitter, @Microsoft, now can you fix my computer? |
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Welcome to Twitter, @Microsoft, now can you fix my computer?
The official @Microsoft account on Twitter stirred to life Wednesday, but so far the company's foray into microblogging is less interesting than the response to it. The move is getting lots of attention, positive and negative, and Twitter users are taking the opportunity to publicly let Microsoft know it has some glitches in its software -- you know, just in case it wasn't aware.
"Now that you're finally on here @microsoft let's talk about all my problems with Outlook. Cool?" writes Geoff Peterson.
"Live Hotmail Mobile log in site has a bug which prevents access on Cricket flashed HTC Mogul Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro smartphone," chimes in John King, apparently hoping for some sort of fix.
Um, yeah, good luck with that.
The four people behind Microsoft's new Twitter account are from corporate communications, not customer service. That, and the broad scope of the company, means we're unlikely to see them responding to an individual Twitter user about a problem with a printer driver, for example. In other words, this does not appear to be Microsoft's version of Comcast's Twitter initiative.
As of late Wednesday, the new Microsoft account had three posts -- one pointing to a new feature, one to a new product, and another to a positive review of Microsoft's Bing search engine.
At the same time, many individual Microsoft product groups, such as the Windows team, already have their own Twitter accounts. Their narrower focus at least gives them a shot at addressing issues raised on Twitter by people who use their products.
Microsoft also added selected Twitter search results to Bing. At the very least, it's clear this Twitter thing has gotten Microsoft's attention.
About Todd Bishop
Todd Bishop is co-founder and managing editor of TechFlash. He has covered Microsoft and the technology industry for more than five years, most recently as a daily newspaper reporter and blogger based in Seattle.
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