So the web is all abuzz with news of Comcast’s customer service wading in amongst the people with its shiny new Twitter account. Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent is the latest to weigh in on what many see as a positive development.
Comcast is diagnosing modem troubles and providing information on new features and even shooting troubles. That’s all well and good, but the company is also engaging in small talk and using emoticons and generally exhibiting human behavior, all of which I find quite troubling from a billion-dollar corporate entity.
Last night, I had a “conversation” with Comcast. I noticed Comcast engaged in an exchange with someone named Robbie.
comcastcares: @Robbie the next version is really cool! Check out Smartzone http://www.comcast.com/ces
robbie: @comcastcares @comcastcares wheres my beta invites to all that!!! i want it!!!
comcastcares: @Robbie I want it too!
me: @comcastcares you are not allowed to be a real person socializing among real people. you are a nameless, faceless corporation. stop it.
comcastcares: @baratunde That just gave me the biggest laugh of the day!! Thank you!
me: @comcastcares there you go again. CORPORATIONS DON’T LAUGH. THEY EXPLOIT. Stop acting like people! stop “talking” to me!!
Can you not see the horror that this portends? I made a corporation laugh. This is antithetical to all I have worked for! I’m a political comic and activist, and I have not honed these skills for the pleasure of moneyed non-personages. I’m here to inflict pain on corporations, not mirth!
Now that Twitter has allowed corporations to express joy, what is next? Will comcastcares ask if I’m feeling down on a rainy day? Will it, yes IT, offer condolences for lost loved ones? Now that it has laughed, will it also cry? Oh I cannot even imagine what the tears of a multichannel service operator would look like.
Most terrifyingly, having expressed joy and soon sadness, what will an angry Comcast do. You know anger is just around the corner, and I don’t think it’s too soon to prepare for the Wrath of Comcast. Will it tell us to “talk to the hand,” or will it merely raise our cable fees at a rate exceeding inflation for the next 10 years?
Will it give us the evil eye and curse us under its breath, or will it instead stack the audience at net neutrality hearings with its employees in order to prevent critics from having their voices heard?
Might its anger manifest in a violent fit or, more dangerously, through astroturf lobbying designed to deceive the public into thinking there’s real, grassroots support behind its interests?
Do you see what Twitter hath wrought!?
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May 21, 2008 at 21:47
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