Using twitter as an outage notification

[lists at internetpolicyagency.com (Roland Perry)]

In article 
<!&!AAAAAAAAAAAuAAAAAAAAAKTyXRN5/+lGvU59a+P7CFMBAN6gY+ZG84BMpVQcAbDh1IQAA
AATbSgAABAAAAAuldg0EWkrSZ9BD0db8+e2AQAAAAA=@iname.com>, Frank Bulk 
<frnkblk at iname.com> writes
>When the local power companies uses twitter, then maybe I'll consider using
>twitter for our customers.

That's a poor example as far as the UK's concerned. You can't get 
information from the power company for days if you are a domestic 
customer.

>There's the temptation by some of companies to leverage the latest
>technology to appear "cool" and "in tune" with customers, but by far and
>large, when something goes down customers either do no nothing, wait, or
>call in.  I think the best use of everyone's time is to make sure their call
>center/support desk has the capability to post an announcement to those that
>call in.

It's a High School. They don't have a "support desk" (or more than 
handful of phone lines [1]). Even the local radio station can't cope 
with one call per school asking them to broadcast the news that they 
have closed due to bad weather.

>And then make sure something gets posted to the website.

Unfortunately, the number of students polling the website for news means 
it can't cope with the traffic. I don't believe they can justify paying 
more for better web hosting, just to manage this once-a-year half hour 
event.

-- 
Roland Perry