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Computer World: Robot lords rule the Roomba rooms

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Scooba A friend of mine pointed this little gem to to me last month. I am an avid iRobot Roomba fan with a generation one Roomba that my dawgs and cats are very fascinated with. I waiting for a version that ups the vacuuming power by about 200 times what it has now and triples the vacuum dust holding bin. Truth be known, I’m also eyeing a iRobot Scooba floor washing robot as a mother’s present for Suzy. Mums the word on that though, m’kay?

Although the use of robots to do housework is fascinating, that is not the point of this blog. ComputerWorld reports:

“According to Maryellen Abreu, director of global technical support at iRobot, that's just what the company wants. With over one million hits per month to its customer community site, iRobot's tech support staff couldn't possibly meet the needs of every consumer. That's where the robot lords come to the rescue.

Robot lords are iRobot customers who, apparently, love the company's products so much that they patrol the company's customer community forums to assist users in distress. More important to iRobot than their affection is that robot lords know the ins and outs of products and are happy to share their knowledge, answering questions, giving advice and soothing the feathers of frustrated buyers who visit the virtual rooms looking for help.

Abreu says the robot lords use the social networking forums on iRobot's site provided by Lithium Technologies Inc., a software as a service provider out of Emeryville, Calif. The service lets users rank advice given by other community participants. Those with the highest rankings get a special icon and the robot lord designation.

But only the elite get to be called robot lords, says Jeff Porter, director of business development at Lithium. He says that his company's experience with social networks indicates that only one or two percent in a given community can achieve a "super user" status like the robot lords in the iRobot world.”

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