Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : Web Hosting Lounge : Twitter for updates during outages

[VN-Ken]

I noticed as of late that majority of providers now have Twitter, including even The Planet, and use it as a backup in case of network failure, or in the event something is offline.

What do you think about this? I personally find that providers are abandoning having offsite servers in the event of such a failure, and are relying on social networks. I do not think that this is effective communication, given that not all people will think to go to a social network to find out if there are any updates.

We will continue to have offsite servers so that we can communicate to our customers directly, so that they do not have to go searching around to find out what the latest is. I know for me that would be a big inconvenience.

Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

[Mike - Limestone]

Hmm, I find that the Twitters tend to be fairly effective. But yes, it does shift traffic off of your own web sites. That is a definite downside.

-mike

[john2k]

Twitter also has some promotional benefits as well. For example, being listed on your followers pages, retweets, etc. It does seem to function well as a secondary means of contact.

[JayNL]

I think it works perfect. If there's any problem, its posted directly on your stream and as long as they also keep their offsite servers in case of an emergency, i only see it as an advantage. Twitter is extremely popular, so its a great way to contact a lot of people at once.

[pphillips]

Using twitter, with a widget somewhere on the corporate site is a great idea. It doesn't negate the need for having something offsite. Not everyone uses twitter, so that widget on your site should help.

Also, it's just too dang easy not to use. When you're rushing around trying to fix a server, it's no problem to send off a quick tweet from your phone. If it helps you provide status updates without really slowing you down I say go for it.

[Mike - Limestone]

Originally Posted by pphillips

Also, it's just too dang easy not to use. When you're rushing around trying to fix a server, it's no problem to send off a quick tweet from your phone. If it helps you provide status updates without really slowing you down I say go for it.

Very good point about the quick mobile updates. Most blogging software definitely does *not* support that.

-mike

[The-Pixel]

I think all companies should have Twitter and provide the links to clients. This will then allow for clients to know when their are specials, outages or other announcements by the company.

[Ohioguru]

I dont see nothing wrong with this being use for a backup to a backup.THE webhost company that im useing is doing this to notify me and other Customer.IM on there now and all is good.

[qwidjib0]

This of course also assumes that Twitter will be up.

[HiVelocityKB]

We have been using twitter for a while now and we find it’s a great tool for not only sales and promotions but if anything ever did happen (nothing yet thankfully) it would be a great way to keep our customers updated.