Dell, the world’s largest computer maker, is going to take questions from media and analysts today via Twitter exclusively during a press conference to introduce a new line of wireless products.
The event, to be held in San Francisco, is going to be streamed via the Web. Instead of a chat service, Dell has decided that Twitter is going to be the event’s communications channel of choice for media, analysts and customers that want to ask the company a question.
According to Dell, interested parties can direct questions during the news conference to www.twitter.com/Digital_Nomads.
Dell has embraced emerging platforms and Web 2.0 applications to presumably, turn its brand into one that’s more readily embraced by the Mac lovin’ Web 2.0 community (N.B. I’m a PC user).
The company has had much success. Its blog/support forums generate great traffic and reportedly save the company bundles of dough in customer support calls annually.
Dell deserves kudos for its embrace of Twitter -it’s a fast-growing communications platform that can help companies reach customers. Too often, companies embrace ideas long after they’ve ceased to be popular or become the norm.
But in this particular instance, the company’s use of Twitter as a communications platform is somewhat misplaced.
The first problem with the micro-blogging and social networking service, of course, is the fact that it’s simply unreliable – frequent crashes are the norm. What is Dell going to do today if media or customers are met with the the now famous "Too Many Tweets" screens when it’s "stressed out?" Anyone who has frequented Twitter has encountered these messages.
Dell would be better off using the ol’ reliable PlaceWare or some other Web-based conferencing service to bring interested parties together. Better to be boring in this instance if only for the sake of efficacy.
Secondly, Twitter won’t allow users to communicate on a real-time basis – it is not interactive enough. In other words, it’ll act more like a one-way messaging service preventing a dynamic level of interaction.
A better use of the social networking service is the feed that Dell has set up for customers to inform them of deals.
Good luck today Dell!
[tags] Dell, Twitter [/tags]
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