[Infowarrior] - Finally, a good use for Twitter

[Richard Forno]

AT&T uses Twitter during service outage
by Marguerite Reardon

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10216712-94.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Want to find out why you suddenly don't have Internet access or cell  
phone service? You might want to check out the social-networking site  
Twitter.

It seems that Twitter was one of the main ways that phone company AT&T  
has been communicating with customers and updating the public about  
the fiber cut that caused thousands of people in Silicon Valley and  
the San Francisco Bay Area to go without broadband, phone, and  
wireless service for most of Thursday.

Janine Popick, CEO of VerticalResponse, whose company has been  
affected by the outage, said the only way she has stayed on top of the  
situation has been through Twitter.

"All of my real time updates have been coming from the AT&T Twitter  
feed," she said.

Indeed, she isn't alone. Nearly 2,400 people have been keeping tabs on  
the situation via AT&T's Twitter feed.

Twitter is a Web-based social-networking service that lets people send  
messages to a group of followers in 140 characters or less. It's been  
around for a couple of years now. I have to admit when I first heard  
about it, I thought it seemed like a service only narcissists would be  
interested in. After all, who really cares what I am doing or where I  
am going or even what I decide to eat for lunch. But the service has  
taken off in the past year, and it's now hitting the mainstream as  
everyone from doctors to restaurants are using the service to update  
patients and patrons.

And it appears that large companies, such as AT&T, are using the  
service to keep their customers and anyone interested in the company,  
informed in real time about a crisis.

AT&T began "tweeting" updates about the massive service outage in  
California around 7 a.m. PDT. With the first message saying:

"CA customers: We are aware of a cable cut situation impacting  
services in Santa Clara and San Jose areas."

 From then on the company has sent about eight more "tweets" or  
messages informing customers that technicians have been on the scene  
and service would be restored as quickly as possible. The company  
apologized for the outage and also informed its followers that the  
outage was likely caused by vandals who had cut the fiber cables.

The company's most recent "tweet" actually notified its Twitter  
followers that AT&T is offering a reward for anyone responsible for  
vandalizing the company's infrastructure:

"AT&T offering $100,000 reward for info leading to arrest/conviction  
of those responsible for CA vandalism. Call 408-947-STOP."

The outage has affected thousands of people throughout the Bay Area,  
even non-AT&T customers. Because AT&T provides the fiber connections  
that link cell phone towers to their respective networks, wireless  
subscribers from almost every carrier were also affected by the  
outage. Some Verizon Communications DSL customers also saw service  
disrupted, because their service uses the AT&T fiber-optic cables to  
send its data traffic to its own nationwide network.

Sprint Nextel, whose wireless customers experienced service  
interruption, hasn't provided official updates via Twitter, but the  
company's spokeswoman Crystal Davis has also been updating customers  
and reporters via her Twitter feed. Davis' most recent tweet indicated  
the company still had no idea when service would be restored.

"Still working w/ our network and disaster recovery team on fiber cut  
issue in CA."

An earlier message tried to offer encouragement to those affected:

"Assessing fibercut issue in CA w/ network + emergency response team.  
We're all in this together folks. Let's have a day of peace in telecom."

Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, has also sent  
updates with links to news stories about the outage. He even sent a  
message to AT&T's media relations representatives asking who reporters  
should call for updates.

"@ATTNews Understand spokesperson has been tough for reporters to  
reach at AT&T on Silicon Valley outage. Who should they call for info?"

While hundreds of messages were sent back and forth on Twitter  
throughout the day among angry customers looking for more information  
on what has been happening, some affected business customers were also  
using Twitter and other social-networking forums to keep their  
customers updated on the outage.

For example San Francisco-based VerticalResponse has been following  
AT&T's updates via Twitter, and it's also been updating its own  
customers using Twitter. VerticalResponse works with roughly 56,000  
small-business customers to distribute direct email marketing  
campaigns. And even though the company is based in San Francisco, its  
servers are collocated in Palo Alto, which was affected by the outage.

For most of the day, VerticalResponse was unable to send marketing  
campaigns on behalf of its customers. And because the company was  
disconnected from the Net, it also had no way to communicate with its  
customers through its corporate e-mail system.

So instead the company leveraged several social-networking platforms,  
including Twitter, to get the word out to its customers about what was  
happening. Instead of coming into the office, most of the company's  
employees stayed home, or went to coffee shops in San Francisco where  
they could get Internet access.

"Our clients are pretty pissed," said VerticalResponse's CEO Janine  
Popick. "And rightly so. When something like happens you just have to  
throw your hands up. There's nothing you can do. But the good news is  
we have been building up a Twitter base, and we have nearly 4,000  
people as part of our online community, so we can communicate directly  
with them through Twitter or Facebook or some other social networking  
medium."

Amen for Twitter. But the big question still remains, "When will AT&T  
fix this mess?" I guess you'll have to check Twitter to know exactly  
when. VerticalResponse's most recent tweet indicates that its servers  
are up and running. And the company has sent all its email campaigns  
for the day.
Marguerite Reardon has been a CNET News reporter since 2004, covering  
cell phone services, broadband, citywide Wi-Fi, the Net neutrality  
debate, as well as the ongoing consolidation of the phone companies. E- 
mail Maggie.