We’ve all been there.  The dreaded call to tech support.  Heck, at one time in the not so distant past I might have been the person on the other end of the line.  The big difference to me is that every time I find myself having to place a call for support the tech takes me through the same old boring set of things under “let’s try a few things first” column of time wasting activities.  I hate asking for assistance only to learn the solution was on page 20 of the manual.  I scour the internet (thank you Google) for answers long before I try the 800 number.

Today as an exception because I already knew what I needed.   Seems the family PC in the kitchen didn’t survive the short power outage last Monday and needs a new power supply.  I always give the OEM the first try but their site was completely useless when it came to parts replacement.  Sure they offered tons in the way of upgrades and peripherals but a simple 350 Watt power supply was nowhere to be found.  So I bite the bullet and gave their online chat a try.  I knew whoever was on the other end would start off with a battery of questions on our journey through their Flowchart of Doom.  I was very disappointed that after giving them the same info I used to search for the part they asked me info which should have been readily accessible to them as tech support.  I mean, why ask me what power supply came with the computer?  Your company makes the computer for goodness sake.

The best was soon to come for as my tech excused herself from our chat while she looked up the power supply info for my computer she asked me one of her pre-canned questions used to pretend the tech is truly engaging with you, the caller and wants to form a “connection”.  Unfortunately it didn’t go over as planned.  Take a look and have a good laugh.  I know I did.

Perhaps on the next call or chat it’ll be best to stick with questions about the weather.  That or go with, “How about them National’s, right!!”

I was looking through my site’s set of stats.  Truthfully, I’ve never been one to stress or obsess with how many or how few visits this blog gets.  Originally, the whole thing was restricted to those who registered and I only let family and close friends do that.  It was my way of keeping everyone up to date with what ever was happening with me.  In other words is was a place to share what my kids were doing and the latest pictures of them.  Then some friends asked why didn’t I just use FaceBook so I did and the blog collected cyberdust.  Then stuff happened to me or I saw something in the real world or online that I wanted to say something about and I thought why not put it on that space GoDaddy was auto-renewing as a favor to me every year.  Then my good friend Tee Morris practically dragged me kicking and screaming to Twitter.  And then I found neat plug-ins that could tie it all together if I were so inclined.  Then a Twitter friend, Odin1eye, who I’ve come to trust and admire talked about the increase of visits his little corner was getting and I went looking for another plug-in for that and here we are.  I can see how many visits the place of mine gets.

It’s right there on my Dashboard whenever I happen to stop by myself to create a new post from a PC (not often.  Go ahead and check for yourself), whenever a new comment is waiting my approval (that happens even less) or when I check for updates to WordPress or one of the plug-ins installed.  But I was looking at the stats and say it tracked what searches led people here. Nearly all of them had to do with the game Word with Friends which speaks more to the popularity of the game than my blog but that’s cool anyway.  What caught my attention where some really odd ones.

I’ve been told racism still exists.  I’m not sure why I’ve been told this or reminded of this.  When this info has been passed on to me it’s come in one of two forms.  The first is almost a whisper, like some special secret.  Almost as if the teller is letting me in on something only a few are privileged to know.   I nod in return in a manner that lets them understand just how grateful I am to now be part of some inner circle.

I noticed that Twitter’s official iPhone app had been updated and made a Universal App. I was real excited to give it another try as I prefer using the same client on both my iPhone and iPad. While going through the configuration settings I realized I could no longer use my Bit.ly account information to customize and track URLs I share with others. This seemed odd and a big #FAIL on Twitter’s part so I fired off this tweet:

@Twitter‘s app has been updated and now is a universal app (works on iPhone & iPad). They took away the custom URL shortening option? #FAIL

I guess Twitter is trying to stay on top of this one because not too long afterwards a nice, friendly email arrived detailing some upcoming changes to Twitter and how 3^rd Party Apps would interact with their service. Specific to me was this section:

Update 2: t.co URL wrapping

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

• A really long link such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it could be displayed to web or application users as amazon.com/Delivering- or as the whole URL or page title.
• You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
• When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.

Thanks for reading this important update. Come and check what’s new at http://twitter.com.

Thanks,
The Twitter Team

So now Twitter wants to track shared URLs to ensure the target is safe. I’m sorta ok with this. I mean why wouldn’t I support efforts that make my online experience safer, right? I don’t, however, like giving up freedoms in the name of safety. I don’t enjoy giving up control. I don’t like how Twitter wants to eliminate what may be a legitimate source of income for many users. I don’t like Twitter doing something that makes it harder for companies trying to track and measure their efforts to reach a willing market.

In truth, the only real reason Twitter has for seizing control of how URLs are shortened is to lay the foundations on which they can monetize their service. This is the beginning of a bad relationship with their millions of users. I guess Twitter hasn’t been watching Facebook to learn what NOT to do.

What are your thoughts?

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