--- (24Jan09 - Welcome to visitors from Laurel Papworth's social media blog.
--- I was trying to work out what was slowing down the phlog.net server and now I know! :-)

Sitting at work earlier today, Outlook popped up a reminder for me to call Ikea to see if the additional shelves for our Billy bookcase had come in. Checked the Ikea website first and it indicated no stock. Phoned the store to confirm and they said to call back Wed-Thu next week, by which time the shipment should be in ('yet to arrive in the country').

Not more than 15 minutes later, I saw this tweet from @aDB in my Twitter feed. Rhodes Shopping Centre and cinema complex is what you can see in this photo. Notice the big Ikea sign? I began wondering....

Having experienced more Ikea stock furphies than I can recall, I sent Matthew a stock enquiry tweet, followed by a half-arsed bribe. Matthew gave me a thumbs-up response and I waited patiently for the verdict.

About 45 minutes later Matthew tweeted again and it included a TwitPic photo of the stock situation. SO MUCH WIN! (but no thanks to Ikea this time).

In roughly the same amount of time it took for me to call Ikea, then wait on hold and be given incorrect information, Matthew have me an accurate stock update and photo evidence. I'm just about to head in there now to pick up the shelves Matthew photographed.

If that wasn't WIN, he added some fun into the mix. Stay tuned for the introduction of the #twittercache (#twittercaching).

UPDATE! UPDATE! See the first #twittercaching story here and the follow-up story here.