Twitter Test

Many people are confused about Twitter, and rightfully so. Until I joined over a year ago and started playing around with it, I thought it was the most useless social media tool to come around since Foursquare (seriously, be more vain).

BUT! I did find actual value and results from Twitter. The basic rule of Twitter is your "tweet" can only be 140 characters. Spaces, punctuation and wording becomes much more important, so your message is much more concise. I think this has actually helped me in writing my work e-mails! Delete the fluff. You can add links to point your "followers" elsewhere, and the invention it bit.ly has helped with this, cutting a long, crazy URL link down to about 10-12 characters. This is not just a site used by tweens and social media nerds (self-included) but has also progressed to companies, organizations and celebrities. Remember Charlie Sheen's #winning rant?

Which brings me to the point of this blawg! (There is one?) My dad recently had an issue with his fridge. Long story short, the motherboard burned up 2 weeks after the warranty expired. My father, being the arguer that he is, contacted Whirlpool customer service and attempted to harass talk them into reimbursing him for the motherboard he paid for since the rep blew him off. Now, most people would say "It's 2 weeks past warranty, tough luck!" but, in the customer service world you sometimes have to tweak the rules and look beyond your corporate guidelines to satisfy annoying customers my father. And he didn't get what he wanted, which I'm sure made him even more upset! So! Off to the twitter world we go! After a few posts to Whirlpool's twitter page, a rep contacted me and asked for some info. I give them about 2 more days before I start posting the burned up motherboard photo on their page. When in doubt, scare 'em!

While we wait it out to see how this fiasco turns out, follow me on twitter: @j_schwartz