Re: Using twitter as an outage notification

[Roland Perry <lists () internetpolicyagency com>]

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...

> 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.

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

> > 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. 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. But I'm beginning to think 
that finally maybe Twitter has the right profile for this application.
--
Roland Perry