Your broadband has been dead since morning and the helpline keeps playing the same song.
There is a faster way to be heard, and it has been sitting on your phone all along.
What is Twitter, and why is everyone calling it X?
Twitter is a place where people post short public messages.
The company was bought in 2022, renamed X in 2023, and now lives at x.com.
The little blue bird became a black X, which confused a great many people.
Most of us still say "tweet", and that is perfectly fine.
You get a handle, which is your name with an @ in front.
Mine is @technesiumblog.
Anyone who chooses to see your posts becomes a follower.
Will a company actually reply to me?
Usually yes, and far quicker than the helpline.
Posts are public, so a complaint on X is a complaint made in front of everybody.
Indian Railways, the airlines, the banks and the telecom operators all watch their mentions closely.
Keep it short, polite and factual, and include your booking or complaint number.
Never post your account number, card details or an OTP, even if a reply asks you for them.
Fake support accounts copy the real one's name and photo, so always check the handle spelling.
How do I find what everyone is talking about?
Put a # in front of a word and it becomes a hashtag, a clickable label.
Tap #MumbaiRains and you will see everyone posting about it right now.
During a monsoon flood or a three-hour flight delay, that is often faster than the news channels.
Trends are simply the hashtags and topics that the most people are posting about today.
Is the blue tick still worth anything?
Not in the way it once was.
A blue tick used to mean Twitter had checked that you really are you.
Today it mostly means somebody is paying for a subscription.
Judge an account by its posts and its history, not by the tick beside its name.
How do I get started?
- Sign up at x.com, or install the X app.
- Follow ten accounts you genuinely care about: your bank, your airline, a cricketer, a news channel.
- Read quietly for a week before you post anything.
- Send your first post, then search for @technesiumblog and say hello.
Things to Remember
- The app is called X now, but it is the same Twitter you remember.
- Tag the company's official handle when you complain, and add your reference number.
- Never share OTPs, card numbers or your address in a post or a message.
- Treat a blue tick as a subscription, not as proof of identity.
- If X is not for you, Threads and Bluesky do much the same job.