[SkateDC] Real-time Skate Information Via Twitter

[George Marinkovich]

Announcing an experiment using Twitter to disseminate real-time skate information.  

We have been missing the capability to disseminate real-time information to skaters.  The website and email list are just not set up to get last minute information to skaters, updates often take some time, sometimes a long time, to appear.  There are a number of circumstances under which it would be very desirable to get updated information to skaters about a skate.  For example, when bad weather is threatening to cancel a skate, when a protest at the White House forces us to our alternate meeting location, etc.  Since most people seem to have mobile phones that accept text messages, it may be possible to use Twitter to help get the word out in these circumstances.

I've set up a Twitter account, skatewash, that I will use for this experiment.  Yeah, not a great name, I know, but all the better names I could think of were already taken!  

If you'd like to participate in the experiment (that is to say, volunteer as a guinea pig) you will need to do the following things:

1)  Sign up on Twitter at https://twitter.com/signup.  It's free and fairly easy to do.  For help see "How to Sign up on Twitter": http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics/topics/104-welcome-to-twitter-support/articles/100990-how-to-sign-up-on-twitter

2)  Add your mobile phone to your Twitter account.  For help see "How to Add Your Phone Via Web Activation":
http://support.twitter.com/articles/110250-how-to-add-your-phone-via-web-activation

3)  Follow skatewash.  From the home page of http://twitter.com, click on the "Find People" link.  Search for skatewash.  Click on the 'Follow" icon for skatewash.  Then, where it says "Following," click on the little cell phone icon so that it turns green and tells you "Updates are sent by SMS to your mobile phone." Green means ON and gray means OFF.

If all goes well, it will be possible for me to send tweets to skatewash followers from my mobile phone and it will be possible for skaters to receive them as txt messages on their mobile phones.  

I promise not to send many tweets to skatewash, and all will be related to the impending skate at the time.  For example, for testing purposes I plan to send a tweet to skatewash at 5 pm today saying:  "Skate is on at 7 pm."  It's just for testing purposes because normally I wouldn't send such a message as there's really no chance of bad weather interfering with the skate today.  The tweets to skatewash would be limited to skate status on days when the weather is questionable.

If a skate is threatened by rain with cancellation, it may be possible using Twitter to reschedule the skate.  For example, should it be raining at 9 am on Sunday morning, but it looks like the rain will end in the morning, it may be possible to reschedule the skate to start at noon and get that information out on Twitter to the skatewash followers.  Thus, it may be possible to save a skate that otherwise would have had to be canceled.

This is an experiment, a work in progress, but it might become a useful tool in the future, allow us to get more of our skates in despite bad weather, and avoid the inconvenience of people showing up for a skate that has been canceled.

Cheers,
George