In order to get closer to their customers, humanize Amazon, increase sales, and stay modern, Amazon.com has decided to make all Instant Messenger (IM) handles of its employees public. This way Amazon.com customers will get unprecedented access to the talented engineers at Amazon to answer all their questions, or just to have an interesting conversation about a new book or that old sci-fi movie. If you want to know why the shipping prediction date was not really clear, feel free to IM Justin Rudd, and get the details behind the algorithms he used to give Amazon.com customers a fast estimate on when they can expect their purchases.

As we have come to expect by now, Amazon.com is once again revolutionizing the industry with how customers are being served. It is expected other companies will be scrambling to imitate their success, and provide access to their employees also. Industry specialists and sociology professors alike have lauded Amazon.com for really “getting it”, for understanding that IM is the way that future generations will want to communicate.

When asked whether their employees would be given special training to handle the new forms of conversations, a company spokesperson responded that Amazon.com’s CTO, Werner Vogels, will be used as an example of a warm and fuzzy communication style. Rumors are that an early document written by Vogels titled “How to use blunt questions to get to the truth” was rejected as being too effective.

Update: This was indeed for some part an April Fool's joke, but there is also a very serious note to it. For that read part II

Thanks, Hugh, priceless