So does twitter address the mass public, or those who are Web 2.0 literate or techies? I'm glad to see that Dell reached two million people, but how many more people call in or visit its web page every day? My point in another fork of this thread is that for most people, the traditional forms of communication are *it*. I'm not saying that twitter hasn't been used and found a way to reach the some portion of the population -- the traditional methods (announcement at top of phone tree & note on homepage) should be maintained and as one more additional way to communication. I think you mentioned that yourself a few posts ago. =) Frank -----Original Message----- From: JC Dill [mailto:jcdill.lists@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, July 04, 2009 5:20 PM Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Using twitter as an outage notification Roland Perry wrote:
In article <4A4F6EF5.9030502@gmail.com>, JC Dill <jcdill.lists@gmail.com> writes
What I'm trying to anticipate is the objection to *also* posting to Twitter, which might be raised on the grounds that it's too "unofficial", or "unsupported" or something like that.
Anyone who makes that argument is just showing how little they know about Twitter.
So that's 98% of the population then...
We aren't talking about the general population. IMHO anyone in Network Operations or NOC management who doesn't know about emerging and cutting edge communications is in the wrong job or the wrong industry.
It would be like complaining you shouldn't use email because "not everyone has email".
But email has become respectable, although I still see "people who know better" starting speeches with 'of course, ten years ago none of us used email, but now....' which shows they are very late adopters themselves.
How many of them are running Internet Networks?
It's this richness which confuses the ordinary person.
That's a lot like saying Perl is too complicated for the ordinary person so never use Perl. :-)
You are confusing the tool with the platform. Twitter is a tool just like Perl. You can reach twitter from any browser, and most mobile phones.
How are they to know which bit of the scattergun approach is the right one to use? Or whether "posting everywhere" has some hidden disadvantage.
You can configure it and use it however YOU want.
Again, that's about the platform called posterous. How can I explain to the School Board that posterous has enough credibility to be used.
You explain that it's a tool. You configure it and then you give a demonstration. Send a post, then show them how users who keep up with local news will find the info depending on what channels they use most often to get important info. Even easier, you make an email address on your system that is an alias to posterous. So they send to "post@schoolsystem.edu" which .forwards out to posterous, which posts to the school blog, myspace, facebook, twitter, and any other system you configure. Show them how a radio station can retweet the info and then announce "to get info on school closings, follow us on twitter at...." and everyone can send the info TO the radio station and get the info FROM the radio station quickly and easily.
I don't think it has. All they ever hear about other Web2.0 like Facebook and Bebo is how dangerous they are for kids.
Sheesh. Cars and bikes are far more dangerous for kids than Facebook and Bebo. That's why kids are taught the rules of the road, to always wear bike helmets, to always buckle up in the car, and they get driver training.
But I'm beginning to think that finally maybe Twitter has the right profile for this application.
Again, why limit yourself? Use all the tools available. jc