There is such a thing as too much Social Media.  I’m talking about the art of ignoring.  We see accounts such as @comcastcares and @richardatdell and various other accounts on Twitter that do an excellent job at handling customer support and actually gaining, as well as retaining customers as a result, all while maintaining a great PR front for the company.  Such media arms require a fine art that includes customer support, PR, a little technical support, and often a little power to make decisions at the executive level.  When you create a customer support channel on Twitter you are, in essence, exposing yourself, and your customers, to the world when it comes to support.  This is a very delicate line to cross. Some times it means you have to ignore certain irate customers to maintain that brand image.  Today, the @XboxSupport team, to me, showed me how not to manage a customer support channel on Twitter.  In fact, they’ve convinced me to leave Microsoft altogether.  Let me share why.

A few days ago on Twitter I mentioned my frustration (note that TweetBoard didn’t archive that entire conversation for some reason, so some of my responses are missing), after my 4th Xbox 360 received its red ring of death, and after taking it through the Microsoft diagnosis tool, it would soon become the 4th Xbox 360 I owned to be replaced by Microsoft under my extended warranty.  4 units!  (I should note, in full disclosure, that one of those is a separate unit that my brother now owns after I replaced it once, so it would be one unit replaced once, and another replaced 3 times)  I paid full price for the unit, and full price for the extended warranty.

I loved my Xbox 360.  I was okay going through the replacement process a couple times.  It was, as I’ve said here before, my entertainment center more than anything.  No other unit, in conjunction with the Windows 7 machine that I own, can allow me to stream and record live TV in as efficient, cheap, and as powerful and flexible a manner as my Xbox 360.  Not only that but I get great games like Halo, and my kids get great family games like Viva Pinata and others that go with it.  I was getting excited for the Kinect product which had been lauded for years as the next generation controller.

Yet at some point having to replace your console over and over again for similar problems, it starts to nag on you.  It especially nags on me as all my friends are starting to buy the PS3 and are trying to convince me to switch after years of defense of the Xbox 360 by myself.  So I complained on Twitter. Sure enough, the first tweets that come in are from friends of mine, asking me if it’s time I let the 360 go.  Some mentioning the return rates of the PS3 are extremely low.

Tempting.

But after someone pointing them to me, in swoops @XboxSupport on Twitter, suggesting, without my asking, that I try out their diagnosis tool online that I’ve tried a million times.  I told them I wasn’t interested, in fact suggesting the only thing that could make me feel better would be a refund or one of the new Xbox 360s that is supposed to have these Red Ring of Death issues fixed, and they proceeded to argue with me.  It got to the point that I was suggesting that the Wii wasn’t giving me these issues and they were in essence saying that the Xbox produced more heat (yes, that’s the problem) which is why it was breaking and the others weren’t (duh).  In all the messaging I got from them, the message that came through to me was that I was wrong, and they were right.  All this in their public stream for all their followers to see, without me originally asking for their help.  You can see part of the conversation here (again note that a lot of it is missing):

They finally stopped the conversation and we both went on our separate ways.  In fact, I was starting to calm down a bit and was actually considering just buying the new Xbox 360 after I replaced this one and perhaps sold it on Ebay or something (or maybe just destroyed it on Youtube for everyone to see).  It was at the same time MG Siegler, of TechCrunch, was mentioning problems he was having with Xbox Live making him want to kill his Xbox 360 as well.  I pointed him to the @XboxSupport conversation I had earlier, and evidently someone else at @XboxSupport caught wind of that too.

When I woke up this morning, in swooped @XboxSupport again, thinking they could save the day, but this time the 3 tweets I received from them were accusing me of not cooperating, again, in front of all their 35,000 followers.  The latest message being, “We do understand your frustration, but for us to provide the best support possible we do need some customer cooperation”.  This after I had done all they asked in my previous conversation with them.  After that they started saying they had done all they could do “if my console was out of standard warranty”.  Again, i was wrong, they were right.  Even though I had the extended warranty they were assuming I didn’t have.  All in their public stream, to their 35,000 followers.  I then suggested they stop arguing and leave it alone, and then they proceeded to defend why they engaged customers on Twitter. 12 Tweets to their 35,000 followers later, they stopped.  At this point my entire Replies column was filled with arguments from @XboxSupport (and one person telling me the PS3 was superior):

My Replies column full of Tweets, in my perception, telling me I’m wrong

When is enough, enough?  I think when the customer tells you they don’t want to hear from you any more that should definitely tell you to just let it go.  Especially when you’re representing one of the biggest brands on the planet, and potentially damaging or hurting that customer’s reputation in front of all the other people following your brand.  When approaching customer support in a public environment, the rules change.  You absolutely cannot give any hint that your customers are ever wrong. Take it to DM.  Take it to e-mail if you want to do that.  Encourage immediately for those customers to e-mail you or call you when it comes to that.  Assumptions can never be made, because you can be held liable.

Instead, I got to tell my 26,000 followers, and now a blog post that will go out to more, how frustrated I was with Microsoft, over and over again with them only fueling my fire each and every time.  The Twitter XboxSupport account has told me, to their 35,000 followers, that I’m wrong, over and over again.  It’s lose-lose, and nobody wins.

Again, I’m wrong, even though that’s not what they were informing me considering they know I already knew.

Now I’m forced to stick to my decision.  I’ll be selling my replaced Xbox 360 on Ebay, and using the money to purchase a PS3.  Or maybe I’ll save the money and just stick with the Wii I currently own.  Microsoft has convinced me with their continual pressing that I’ll always be wrong in their opinion and because of that I can’t stick with them.  Therefore I won’t buy an Xbox 360 again.  Not only that but their other followers also see that.  Also, as a result, that Xbox 360 was the only reason I was still on Windows 7 – my Windows 7 machine was my media center, and Windows Media Center powered my entire Xbox 360-controlled media experience.  Now I don’t need that any more either.  Unfortunately in a world of interconnected devices, killing one device causes a ripple effect to the others.  All this very possibly could have been stopped by a single support person keeping their mouth shut and letting bygones be bygones.

There is a time when Social Media can be too much.  It’s important you train those representing your company on Twitter and elsewhere to realize this.  Customer Support is no longer just a support role any more.  It’s a PR role as well.  There are legal repercussions.  There are reputation repercussions.  There is much more to this position.

It’s important, as you’re approaching your customer support approach to social media that you have a way to get to the bottom of the situation as quick as possible, and preferably in private.  You should recognize the problem, contact the person individually, and determine if in the end they can ever be right.  If that’s not the case, it’s a moot point to try and convince them otherwise.  The customer is always right.  They should especially be right in public.  To this customer, unfortunately in Microsoft’s public perception, I’ll always be wrong, and that will never be deleted.  That’s just bad support, and the exact opposite of what a social media campaign should produce.  There’s an art of ignoring, and at least Microsoft’s XboxSupport team has proved to me they don’t get that art.  Goodbye Microsoft.  I hope you can sway me back.

So, who’s got a good deal on a PS3?

Here we go again.  We’ve been here before.  History always repeats itself.

In the early days of the desktop computer, it was the Wild West.  No computer was dominant because they all simply had not been around long enough.  The movie, “The Pirates of Silicon Valley”, described this era well, and was a time of company after company innovating, stealing features from their competitors that they lacked, and then their competitors innovating and doing the same.  It’s a virtuous cycle that continues to repeat itself even today, resulting in more competition and better technology as a result.  As we move from platform to platform this cycle will continue, over and over again, and consumers will always end up, as a majority, choosing the most popular player that provides “choice”, without regard to any potential benefit the less popular player may give them when it comes to a more close environment at the benefit of a better experience.

Microsoft’s Platform: Choice, at the Sacrifice of Experience

As Microsoft began to gain a handle on the market, taking the software route and letting go of the hardware market, Apple, the other consumer desktop player was trying to control the hardware experience, and Microsoft’s business took off.  Microsoft was unstoppable, momentum pushing them faster and faster to the point of almost Monopoly.  It even got to the point where markets they never even considered competing in, such as the web browser, had no chance because Microsoft had control of the operating system where those markets ran.

Microsoft’s entire platform was about choice. You chose the hardware you ran.  You chose the software you ran on it.  Heck, the hardware was open enough you could also run other operating systems such as Linux on it.  The Microsoft environment promoted this type of mentality, and, like it or not, perhaps was part of the cause and motivation towards the Free Software and Open Source Software movement that is so prevalent today.

Apple’s Platform: Closed, at the Advantage of Experience

During the entire time Microsoft was growing and booming into the company it is today, Apple maintained its consistency.  It wasn’t going to give up the tightly-integrated hardware and software experience at the risk of losing the full experience Apple was known for.  When you bought an Apple product, you knew the software on the product was going to work well with the hardware it was built on.  The software was designed specifically for that hardware.  In return the customer got an experience that made that customer the die-hard Apple fanboy you see today.  They gained a loyal, devout following as a result, “The Cult of Mac”.

The Cycle Continues

So here we are today.  It took an entirely new device to start the cycle over again – a music device, the iPod, which eventually turned into a phone and Apple was able to gain control of the music industry in the process through iTunes (which is, in essence, a cloud based product that downloads files to your computer).  This gave them the advantage they needed to innovate and bring new customers in at a faster rate than ever before.

Soon competitors emerged.  Palm released WebOS.  Google released Android.  Microsoft released the Zune and will soon be releasing Windows Phone 7.  Now we are in an exactly similar battle we saw in the early desktop days, companies fighting on choice.  Companies fighting to gain momentum.  The companies who chose choice gaining the most momentum.  The companies choosing to remain consistent losing that momentum, but maintaining a reliable reputation and great experience.

Are the Fanboys Learning?

There was a large group of people who chose the consistent, closed, better experience without ever having taste of the choice.  This group of people are now tasting that as what used to be neutral ground, Google, has built Android and entered this battle themselves on the premise of choice.  Now these users, who were users of both, are being forced to make a choice, and they’re experiencing something they’ve never experienced before: freedom.

I read fascinating posts like Louis Gray’s and his reasons for switching to Android, yet battling to leave Apple entirely, and I notice a struggle to leave that experience entirely.  He knows the good taste of the experience Apple provides.  At the same time he finally sees the choice the decoupling of software and hardware can provide.  He’s finally seeing the advantages of an Operating System embraced by the masses.  He’s not alone in this struggle.

The “Choosers” Finally Taste Experience

It goes the other way too though.  There are many out there (such as Robert Scoble), myself included somewhat, that finally realized what a beautiful thing Apple was from the iPhone.  We went with the masses over to the device and discovered what a beautiful thing having a nicely coupled experience could be.  We were brought over to Macs and iBooks and MacBooks and iPads, and were brought to wonder what in the world we were missing in our world of “choice” before.

At the same time we’ve seen the “choice” world.  We know what choice means, and we know it means more struggle.  We know it means more configuration and more bugs and more problems with the OS not always working properly with the hardware it was installed on.  We know not all the applications will have the same consistant experience we get with the Apple experience.  We haven’t given it up, but we do know which one we like better.

We’re at an interesting crossroads right now.  Right now I carry at all times in my pockets an iPhone 4 and an Android-based Evo.  My wife runs a Pre, which I also carried on my person for quite awhile.  While, as a developer and blogger, I choose all of them, I always fall back to one.  I always fall back to the one that’s most convenient.  I always fall back to the one where my applications will be most reliable.  I always fall back to the one that works best with the overall experience of technology in my home and in my life.  I fall back to the one whose batteries aren’t dead.  No matter how hard I try, the Apple experience seems to keep winning me over.

I don’t care if any company has momentum.  I’ve stopped caring about Choice.  In the end it’s about efficiency.  It’s about productivity.  It’s about what makes me the best person I can be and what I can feel most comfortable using with the least amount of effort.  It’s about “choosing” the best experience that I know will continue to be reliable over time, and has a reliable track record in doing so.  For this user, at least so far, I will continue to fall back on experience.

Image courtesy http://appadvice.com/appnn/2009/10/microsofts-apple-impression/

This week I am at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada to see what’s happening with the latest in consumer gadgets.  The show kicked off on Wednesday, where I was just barely able to make it to the Steve Ballmer keynote, where he talked about what was supposed to be the “future” of Microsoft.  The problem was, as compared to the Bill Gates Keynotes of the past, there was little “future” about it.  Ballmer focused on previous products, some that have been out for years now, making the Keynote, as I said earlier on Twitter, well, boring.  Based on his Keynote, with all the launches Google and Apple are doing lately, I think Microsoft may really be in trouble!

A very large portion of what Ballmer talked about was focused on Windows Media Center, showing the capabilities it has in the Home Media Center.  This is something I have said before that Microsoft has long had a strength in and I wished they would focus on more.  I am thinking they’re finally realizing this and trying to get more eyes on it.  The problem is, there was no innovation in this area, making the demo a bunch of technology that I’ve been using already for 3 years now!  Perhaps I’m the only one, making this “new” to most people.

The rest of the keynote was spent demoing the already-launched Windows 7 and the various types of PCs that run it.  There were no real announcements other than the fact that Natal will be launched the end of this year (even though they had no Demo), and that there would be a new version of Halo.  Beyond that, nothing.

The Future for Microsoft

Based on the content of Ballmer’s keynote, I have to worry about the health of the software giant for the future.  Will they be able to keep up with their competitors, who are already releasing some extremely innovative technology?  Microsoft has a lot of potential – I just wonder if they’re behind on getting to that potential.

For example, one of the things they did cover in the Keynote was the capability to download Zune and Media Room videos and play them anywhere – on your TV, on your computer, or even on your phone.  I think the full experience is something Microsoft can leverage.  Being able to play this stuff anywhere (and I would argue that anywhere should also be my iPhone), is a powerful point for Microsoft!  Let’s hope they push this further – from the tablet PCs to the TVs to even the Cars with Sync and other Microsoft technologies I should be able to pass this content around (and preferably in an open manner).

What Will We See From Microsoft?

After this keynote, if I were a Microsoft investor, I would be a little worried right now.  There was very little innovation announced the other night!  Let’s hope, alongside Natal (Microsoft’s controller-less body-controlled gaming experience) and Halo, that Microsoft can fully integrate their technologies across the board into many parts of each user’s life.  Microsoft needs to start embracing their Zune brand more (which, the hardware wasn’t even mentioned during the keynote).  They need a brand new, Microsoft-branded phone that they have control over similar to the Xbox.  They need a completely brand new interface that integrates Bing, Zune Marketplace, Windows Media Center, Sync, and many other Microsoft technologies that works on Mobile.

If Microsoft can do this successfully (which they were close, but were unsuccessful at portraying during the Keynote), they would have a pretty serious product on their hand.  However, I don’t know what Ballmer was thinking during this Keynote.  Based on the content, you would think that Microsoft the company was just like the power at the beginning of the keynote – dead.

This is a picture of my very first computer. It was my very first glimpse into the world of Microsoft that would soon bring interest to the brilliant career as a software developer that I am now able to fulfill. That computer, an IBM PC compatible (of some sort), is what matured my experience as a developer. I remember the days of MS Dos before we even had color and windowing systems, and this computer even booted to BASIC! I remember my Dad getting a pirated copy of Microsoft Windows version 1 on 5″ floppies (as we were living in Indonesia at the time and this was all you could get out there), and trying it out, thinking there was no way he’d ever want to use a system like that. If you notice in the picture, we didn’t even have a mouse! The closest input device was the Joystick you see, which I used to play ironically, my first glimpses of the Microsoft Brand, in the game, Flight Simulator. Back then, Microsoft was simply just another brand you saw on a piece of software. Next to the likes of Broderbund, Activision, Lotus, and Wordperfect, Microsoft was just another software manufacturer that you saw alongside the likes of games and DOS.

Over the years, we began to see the gradual creeping of Microsoft into our daily lives. My first notices of Microsoft after the gaming and DOS days that I can remember would probably be the emergence of Microsoft Office, which, ironically, would not work on the computer I picture above. I had to wait to get a new computer before I could use it at home. Most of my memories of that came from Junior High School lab computers. It was actually rare back then for students to have a computer at home, yet alone one with a Word Processor!

At some point, we ended up installing Windows 3.1. I think it was the beginning of High School. It was there that I learned what a driver was and how hard it was to get any external hardware to really work with Windows 3.1. I really gained an appreciation of DOS in those days and learned how to write my own Batch files, configure my autoexec.bat and config.sys files to get everything I needed working properly. Frankly, back then there wasn’t much to get working properly. 3.5″ floppies were the new thing, few computers had sound cards, and there was no such thing as a CD ROM drive (at least not that we could afford!).

In High School, I remember getting a summer job my Senior Year at Computer City, a Tandy company, the company that also owned Radio Shack. While there, Windows 95 launched, and I remember trying to explain to customers the differences between Windows 95 and OS 2 Warp. We also sold Mac machines and Apple software in our stores back then! I remember beta testing Windows 95 with my friend and remembering all the cool new features it brought over Windows 3.1, and thinking it was so weird I didn’t have to install DOS before installing Windows 95!

I ended up going from there to work in Tech Support for Gateway computers. It was at that time that Microsoft Bob came out and I was forced to support it. I can’t tell you the number of times I remember just encouraging users to format and reinstall – it was actually standard protocol for the company back then!

Not long after that, Windows 98 came out, and shortly before I remember the IE/Netscape wars, the Novell Wordperfect/Microsoft Office wars (that was right here in Utah!), and somehow Microsoft continued to prevail. I think it was at that time I began to use Microsoft Office over Wordperfect products regularly for the first time. It was my only choice!

When Windows 2000 came out I remember how stable it was! Finally, a version of the Microsoft OS that the average Joe could use, based on Enterprise technology! (NTFS) I think it was at that point that I started seeing Microsoft as “evil”, and began venturing towards Open Source and other technologies to break free of the Microsoft trenches. It was also at that time that Netscape was no longer the dominant browser and web developers were very quickly forced to change their ways.

Since then we’ve seen Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Me (choke!), Xbox 360, MSN, Windows Live, Windows Media Center, and even Microsoft Surface! From games and DOS to programmable furniture, Microsoft has come a long way over the years. Yet, one man has stood at the center of it all, a quiet, but very, very, rich man, Bill Gates. He has been the quiet identity behind Microsoft for probably most of my life. Friday, Bill Gates had his last day at Microsoft. He has brought me many great years, and much of the reason I am a developer today. As he leaves I feel a piece of me bidding farewell, yet, at the same time, that company that I have both loved and hated over the years will still continue on in his legacy. Mr. Gates, thanks for the Memories!

For the non-tech-heads visiting my blog you can probably ignore this one, although it might provide some useful insight if you’re having issues with upgrading to Vista SP1. I have had the biggest headache recently trying to get Vista Service Pack 1 installed on my Windows Vista Ultimate, 64-bit Edition PC. The new Vista SP1 is stated to have many bug improvements, and since Hulu would occasionally crash my machine during my wife’s viewing of old “Major Dad” episodes (yes, they even have that on there!), I finally got fed up with it.

The problem with Vista SP1 is if for some reason you thought you needed every single update out there and installed all the language packs (I actually do have a fascination with foreign languages), SP1 refuses to install, and won’t even show up in your list of automatic updates to install under Windows Update. So, I figured, why not just remove them? Well, it appears that that, too seems to be a bug in Vista. Despite the fact that it would take 30 minutes each (at least) to remove each language pack, eventually, I started getting errors on the last few language packs I was trying to install. Vista was fighting back with me, avoiding with a vengeance not to be upgraded.

So I searched all around the internet trying to find a solution – I wanted to fix all these bugs, but the bugs were keeping me from upgrading Vista to fix the bugs that were preventing the upgrade! (Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?) After a week of waiting for things to be resolved in various threads on Google with people that were experiencing the same issue, I came across this forum post from Saad Siddiqui on this thread on VistaHeads:

There is a workaround but it requires dealing with the registery so backup registery first.

1. press Windows Logo Key + R to open Run Dialog
2. Type regedit
3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHEINE\SYSTEM\CONTROSET001\MUI

there will be an entry for romanian language DELETE it. [for english the key is "en-US" in the navigation tree].

Repeat step three for

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHEINE\SYSTEM\CONTROSET003\MUI

this will make SP1 installer to see only English Language there.

hence it will continue installation.

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHEINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROSET\MUI

It was corrected that instead of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CONTROLSET001 it was really HKLM\SYSTEM\CONTROLSET001\Control\MUI\UILanguages, repeated for CONTROLSET003 and CURRENTCONTROLSET. Backup your registry first!!!

I tried this, removed all languages except US from the listed languages under my registry, and voila – all of the sudden Vista SP1 was appearing in my list of Automatic Updates! I installed it, and now my wife can watch her “Major Dad” episodes on Hulu just fine. It should be noted that even the Microsoft employee in that thread was unable to diagnose this.

So if you’re looking for a quick shortcut to get rid of all the pesky language packs so you can install Vista SP1, hopefully this provides a solution that works for you. Good luck!