Using twitter as an outage notification

Sun Jul 5 13:03:08 UTC 2009

In article <0D357934-85DE-4935-8F58-02F5FCC1DC8A at americafree.tv>, 
Marshall Eubanks <tme at americafree.tv> writes

>I would say this partially would depend on how and what you want to 
>communicate. If there is just going to be
>one pronouncement per day (the school is up / down / delayed), then 
>facebook and / or myspace would suggest themselves.

There's going to be a handful a year. Such as "school closed today due 
to snow". or "remember - school closed today for staff training" [a 
curious British phenomenon].

>They are to date free, and the students will know what they are. I 
>would start with facebook.
>
>If you look at the #AuthorizeNet situation, there was a lot of back and 
>forth. Will the schools have a need for
>back and forth ?

No, if the school's closed, it's closed. No debate allowed.

>Note that this will take people answering questions / dealing with 
>issues on twitter. Specifically, someone would have to  pay attention 
>to it during any quasi-emergency period - do the schools have such a 
>person ?

Such a person could be designated.

>Also, if the school looses power in a storm,

Schools in urban areas here very rarely lose power in storms. All the 
cables are underground. Of course, losing power would be another excuse 
to close the school :)

>is there a backup means  of getting to the Internet ?

A laptop with a 3g modem would suffice, or for Twitter someone with a 
suitably configure mobile phone.
-- 
Roland Perry