Public data operation and incident feeds - Twitter, Facebook etc

[whole diary]

[johoare]

I have split this topic off from a topic that reported a "person hit by train" incident on the evening of 15th January.   Such events are traumatic and sad for all concerned, and may of us felt that the warping of the discussion to the best way of handling news as it develops at such time was both important and should be separated from the specific events of the evening.  So I have separated out the posts as best I can ...

Original thread at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=13456.0

-- Graham



Slightly irrelevant to the particular topic here but more relevant generally.. I've always wondered why FGW^▸ (First Great Western) do all their realtime updates on twitter where they have to restrict the length of what they say rather than facebook when they can say what they would would like to in as many words as they need??

[Ollie]

Hi Jo

It's largely based on feedback we receive via our survey monkey links we sometimes put out. Twitter is the most valued source for live information. It is also our most active source during disruption, if we didn't tweet out service updates I suspect we would be even busier on Twitter.

During major disruption Facebook will get a few posts from customers, but it doesn't really get a great deal of engagement.

[johoare]

Hi Jo

It's largely based on feedback we receive via our survey monkey links we sometimes put out. Twitter is the most valued source for live information. It is also our most active source during disruption, if we didn't tweet out service updates I suspect we would be even busier on Twitter.

During major disruption Facebook will get a few posts from customers, but it doesn't really get a great deal of engagement.

Thanks Ollie.. As one of the many people who don't really understand twitter (facebook is much easier) I guess I'm quite stuck if I need up to date information. Out of interest, where do you put the survey monkey links out? Not twitter I hope (not sure I've seen one on facebook) ;-)

[grahame]

For members who don't tweet ... the following link will give you the latest news from Ollie and his colleagues.   

https://twitter.com/fgw/

Would it be useful to replace the "Road Report" link at the top of every page with this?   I am overloaded with things to do at the moment, so putting the live feed onto every page probably can't happen this month (and might well need formal approval which could take a time!) but a link could be done within a day or so.

[Phil]

I have to say, I'm completely the opposite to Jo - I find Twitter simple and intuitive and up to the second with news, and Facebook unbelievably complicated; in fact despite being something of a "power user" I still genuinely have no real understanding of the advantages of pages over groups. In summary, my approach is that Facebook's great for reaching out to people; Twitter's best for seeing the wider picture.

Either way though I just wanted to jump in here and thank Ollie and colleague for the sympathetic and excellent way in which this particular incident has been handled. And to mention to Graham that in time I'd like to see the road reports replaced by a Twitter feed (not that I need another one, I just think it would be more useful)

[Brucey]

The problem with Facebook is that it doesn't keep things in chronological order and "prioritises" posts based on what it thinks I want to see.  Whereas on Twitter, every Tweet from everyone I follow is shown in time order, with none of this selection that Facebook carries out.

[JayMac]

You have the option to 'Sort' posts on your Facebook timeline by 'Most Recent'. This then keeps them in chronological order. I've bookmarked Facebook so that it defaults to 'Most Recent'.

[lordgoata]

I have to say, I'm completely the opposite to Jo - I find Twitter simple and intuitive and up to the second with news, and Facebook unbelievably complicated; in fact despite being something of a "power user" I still genuinely have no real understanding of the advantages of pages over groups. In summary, my approach is that Facebook's great for reaching out to people; Twitter's best for seeing the wider picture.

I couldn't agree more! I have never understood Facebook. I am also a power user (hate that description!) and Facebook and all its bloody options (and I love options and tweaking things), just confuses the hell out of me. How it ever go so popular, I will never understand.

Twitter I always found useful for getting quick notifications about updates to various things. They came to me, on my desktop, via TweekDeck, so I never missed a thing. Ever since Twitter shutdown TweekDeck and started restricting all the 3rd party apps, I gave up on Twitter as well, sadly.

As an aside, it feels quite wrong to discuss the pro's and con's of Twitter and Facebook on this thread, given the subject. Perhaps a mod could spin these messages off into another thread ?

Condolences to all involved in the incident yesterday.

[grahame]

As an aside, it feels quite wrong to discuss the pro's and con's of Twitter and Facebook on this thread, given the subject. Perhaps a mod could spin these messages off into another thread ?

Agreed, and I've done that as best as practical with a thread in which two very different, but important each in their way, topics were mixed.   The original three dealing with the "person hit by train" last night is at http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=13456.0

[grahame]

And to mention to Graham that in time I'd like to see the road reports replaced by a Twitter feed (not that I need another one, I just think it would be more useful)

Done - it allows anyone who's not on Twitter (and indeed anyone who is  ) to see the latest @FGW^▸ (First Great Western) tweets and anything they choose to share with others (retweet).

[Ollie]

Thanks Ollie.. As one of the many people who don't really understand twitter (facebook is much easier) I guess I'm quite stuck if I need up to date information. Out of interest, where do you put the survey monkey links out? Not twitter I hope (not sure I've seen one on facebook) ;-)

In the past Survey Monkey links have gone on Twitter as it's our largest user base..however the Facebook likes have grown quite a lot since our last survey want on Twitter, so it would be interesting to see what sort of feedback we get if we include Facebook in future. I will pass that to Jo (My Manager) as she deals with them.

Either way though I just wanted to jump in here and thank Ollie and colleague for the sympathetic and excellent way in which this particular incident has been handled.

Thanks Phil.

You have the option to 'Sort' posts on your Facebook timeline by 'Most Recent'. This then keeps them in chronological order. I've bookmarked Facebook so that it defaults to 'Most Recent'.

That's a fair point

[johoare]

Thanks Ollie.. As one of the many people who don't really understand twitter (facebook is much easier) I guess I'm quite stuck if I need up to date information. Out of interest, where do you put the survey monkey links out? Not twitter I hope (not sure I've seen one on facebook) ;-)

In the past Survey Monkey links have gone on Twitter as it's our largest user base..however the Facebook likes have grown quite a lot since our last survey want on Twitter, so it would be interesting to see what sort of feedback we get if we include Facebook in future. I will pass that to Jo (My Manager) as she deals with them.

Ha ha that might get a bit of a biased reply then.. If I could work twitter out, I would have had a chance to reply to the survey monkey re my Facebook preference.. I may not be the only one...or two.. or three.. etc :-)

[grahame]

Ha ha that might get a bit of a biased reply then.. If I could work twitter out, I would have had a chance to reply to the survey monkey re my Facebook preference.. I may not be the only one...or two.. or three.. etc :-)

Well spotted, Jo ... it reminds me of a past era when we only had TransWilts trains from Swindon at 06:18 and 18:44.  A survey by an external organisation asked the passenger on the 06:18 if the time of the train was right for him, and reported back 100% customer satisfaction.  (To be fair, there may actually have been 3 passengers, and it *is* useful after the night shift or for an early start at Westbury)

[johoare]

Ha ha that might get a bit of a biased reply then.. If I could work twitter out, I would have had a chance to reply to the survey monkey re my Facebook preference.. I may not be the only one...or two.. or three.. etc :-)

Well spotted, Jo ... it reminds me of a past era when we only had TransWilts trains from Swindon at 06:18 and 18:44.  A survey by an external organisation asked the passenger on the 06:18 if the time of the train was right for him, and reported back 100% customer satisfaction.  (To be fair, there may actually have been 3 passengers, and it *is* useful after the night shift or for an early start at Westbury)

Indeed Grahame.. That is a much better other example that any I could have come up with...

[Ollie]

Thanks Ollie.. As one of the many people who don't really understand twitter (facebook is much easier) I guess I'm quite stuck if I need up to date information. Out of interest, where do you put the survey monkey links out? Not twitter I hope (not sure I've seen one on facebook) ;-)

In the past Survey Monkey links have gone on Twitter as it's our largest user base..however the Facebook likes have grown quite a lot since our last survey want on Twitter, so it would be interesting to see what sort of feedback we get if we include Facebook in future. I will pass that to Jo (My Manager) as she deals with them.

Ha ha that might get a bit of a biased reply then.. If I could work twitter out, I would have had a chance to reply to the survey monkey re my Facebook preference.. I may not be the only one...or two.. or three.. etc :-)

Perhaps, but like I said, the userbase at the time on Facebook was much smaller, and we do have people that like us on Facebook that also follow on Twitter. Be interesting to see what other people that like our page do think, but it's not something that has come up frequently in the past..once or twice out of about 12k likes.