Going public with dirty linen

With Twitter, Ryan Rose receives short messages about what his friends are cooking for dinner, latest updates from blogs and home-improvement tips from Home Depot.

And now his washing machine tweets when a load of clothes is done.

A senior programmer from San Jose, California, Rose spent a week modifying his 25-year-old washing machine to send a message to Twitter when his laundry is ready.

He admits his less-than-reliable memory has been to blame for the mildewed clothes that have piled up after he has left a load sitting in his machine too long.

Tweet in time

But no more, thanks to Twitter text-message alerts to his mobile phone from his hacked washer, which he dubbed Pimpy3Wash.

After recent attention from various blogs, Rose's washing machine has 152 followers on Twitter — which means every time he does laundry, 152 people hear about it.

One subscriber to Pimpy's laundry feed is Whirlpool's Twitter account.

Brian Snyder, the company official who oversees Whirlpool's social media accounts, reached out to Rose on YouTube after spotting the video.

He said the company was “always looking for new ways to connect our appliances to the internet''.

Rose told Whirlpool that he's excited about the potential of bringing this technology to a mainstream audience. “Why aren't these things out on the market yet?'' he asked.