Australia’s biggest telco joins Twitter: Hi Telstra Bot

Australia’s biggest telecommunications firm Telstra (think AT&T, but more evil) has joined Twitter.

The BigPond Twitter account sees Telstra’s internet service become available for the first time to monitor and respond to user concerns. It’s great in theory, but Alister Cameron points out, the responses so far are so canned that they could have only been made by a bot.

Sadly, despite employing Australian podcaster Cameron Reilly as an adviser, Telstra can do little right in social media. It’s great to see them on Twitter, but they way they’ve done it makes them a laughing stock yet again. Their previous efforts to join Web 2.0 included firing the first blogger on Now We’re Talking who actually dared speak the truth and didn’t tow the company line.