Using twitter as an outage notification

[lists at internetpolicyagency.com (Roland Perry)]

In article <h2ns2s$kcv$1 at ger.gmane.org>, Chris Hills <chaz at chaz6.com> 
writes
>> That's the kind of "marketing-led" response I was hoping to hear.
>>
>> But the UK National Rail system now uses Tweets to tell customers about
>> disruptions on the trains, and several major UK government departments
>> and news organisations use it for announcements and "Breaking News".
>>
>> So has it become "respectable" yet?
>
>When there are open-source equivalents available (e.g. Laconica, 
>OpenMicroBlogger - both of which incidentally are compatible since they 
>are based upon the OMB spec), I do wonder why a commercial or 
>government entity would use a closed-source, non-domestic service.

That's fair comment, but how do you get your customers to install quirky 
niche solutions to what's a once-a-year problem?

They all seem pretty happy using a multitude of other "non-domestic" 
solutions, which probably accounts for 99% of the stuff they have on 
their PCs.

So "not sufficiently mature" we can get away with as an excuse, but 
"Made in America" isn't going to put many people off :)
-- 
Roland Perry