Using twitter as an outage notification

Sat Jul 4 13:50:52 UTC 2009

Roland Perry wrote:
> In article <786BA8C0-B534-40FF-9126-1E33BD11CB3C at americafree.tv>, 
> Marshall Eubanks <tme at americafree.tv> writes
>>> That's a great idea, use some lame Web 2.0 trend to communicate with
>>> actual real life customers. </sarcasm>
>>>
>> I would assume they figured it was better than just remaining silent.
>
> I'm about to recommend to an organisation that it [a twitter account] 
> is better than posting news of an outage on their low-volume website, 
> which will get swamped when too many people poll it for news.
>
> What does the team think? 

I don't understand why this is an either/or question.  Why not post to both?

Twitter is a great method of communication, for those that use twitter.  
But some people don't use twitter.  So use every avenue you have.  If 
you have a customer mailing list for announcements, send email.  If you 
have a blog, post to the blog.

I'm in the process of setting up posterous to post to a blog, myspace, 
facebook, and twitter all with one email.  Can't get much simpler than 
that for getting the word out via all the channels (assuming that 
outbound email is working).  (Obviously some businesses don't want/need 
myspace or facebook, but if you use them, post there too.)

http://posterous.com/autopost

Quoting:

How does autoposting work?

Just set up your other accounts here. The next time you post to 
posterous, we will instantly autopost everywhere else.
Facebook profile newsfeeds will be updated each time you post to notify 
your friends. You can also autopost photos to your photo album and embed 
your blog directly in your profile.

Twitter messages will use the title of your post up to 130 characters, 
and then append a shortened post.ly url.

Flickr photos will be put automatically in your photostream. If you 
attach multiple photos, we'll post them all in the order we receive them.

Blogs will be updated with the full content you send us. We'll host your 
images, music and files, so you don't have to lift a finger.

You control where we post.

Just email the right address and we'll do the right thing.
Post Everywhere?    post at posterous.com as usual
Twitter?    twitter at posterous.com
Flickr?    flickr at posterous.com
Facebook?    facebook at posterous.com
Tumblr?    tumblr at posterous.com
Any other blog?    blog at posterous.com
Posterous only?    posterous at posterous.com
Combine them!    flickr+twitter at posterous.com

You can also address an email to #{text}@posterous.com and it will post 
to any site where the url contains that text.

#apple at posterous.com will go to apple.wordpress.com and 
flickr.com/apple, but NOT banana.blogspot.com.

jc