In what appears to have been an automated response, HBO Max’s customer support Twitter account proactively reached out Sunday night to ask master operator @hbomax if he needed technical assistance to watch the “House of the Dragon” premiere. The @hbomax account, about an hour after the “Game of Thrones” prequel series premieres at 9 p.m. ET, had tweeted: “The only thing that could bring down the House of the Dragon was himself. #HOTD” Less than half an hour later, @HBOMaxHelp responded with a polite, apparently closed question: “Hey, we want to help. Could you let us know what device you are using?’ (The tweet has since been deleted, but you can see it below.) The meta exchange came as a relatively small number of HBO Max users reported problems accessing the streamer on Sunday night. According to service monitoring website Downdetector, a peak of 3,784 people reported having problems with HBO Max on Sunday night. What might have prompted @HBOMaxHelp to essentially ask himself if he needed help? In this case, the system powering @HBOMaxHelp was apparently automatically scanning for tweets that referenced “House of the Dragon” in some way, along with keywords indicating technical distress — in this case, “down.” Metadata on @HBOMaxHelp’s tweets indicates the service uses software from Sprinklr, a provider of “unified customer experience management” tools, to track and respond to user requests. Two weeks ago, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that it has completed a months-long process of updating its HBO Max apps across all platforms to “a more efficient technology stack” along with improved design and navigation capabilities. Beginning in the summer of 2023 in the US, WBD plans to launch a merged HBO Max/Discovery+ streaming platform that combines features and content from both services. Pictured above: Matt Smith as Daemon Targaryen in HBO’s “House of the Dragon.”
