A great example of corporate Social Networking

January 7th, 2009 15:36 UTC ·

This morning I was reading Richi Jennings’ Palm Rumor Roundup, which ended with an off-topic link to something called the “washing machine hack:”

Now, having your washing machine post on Twitter isn’t the most useful tech project, but that’s not why I’m posting this. I’m posting because of (and, for the record, I can’t believe I’m typing this) an interesting YouTube comment:

My name is Brian Snyder, and I work at Whirlpool Corporation where we make Maytag appliances. Im excited to see that youre still getting use out of what looks like a 25 year-old Model A210.

Were always looking for new ways to connect our appliances with the Internet.

Were always listening @WhirlpoolCorp, so please drop us a line! And, of course, well be following the excitement of @PiMPY3WASH.

Thanks,
Brian (@bsniz)

Ah, there it is -- the essence of social networking. Instead of sending out boilerplate, someone at the Corporation is engaging product users on a peer basis. That said, Whirlpool’s YouTube Channel is underutilized -- perhaps they will find a new motivation and create videos touting their products, like T-Mobile UK did recently.

But taking the time to post a comment on a user’s video (thereby raising the average quality of YouTube comments a significant amount) impresses me. Well done, Brian Snyder.