Instant Feedback Using Twitter – Innovative or Spooky?
Posted by Brian Kelly on May 6th, 2009
Background
In March I facilitated a workshop on “Exploiting the Potential of Web 2.0 and the Social Web” on behalf of Renaissance East Midlands. In my opening talk I outlined some of the ways in which Web 2.0 could benefit cultural heritage organisations. This included a description of the way in which Twitter is being used to support communities of practice, initially development communities who may be more willing to investigate new technologies but increasingly those involved in service provision and support.
How The Science Museum Is Interacting With Its Visitors
At the workshop I speculated that in the future, as mobile devices which support location-based applications (such as the iPhone or the new HTC Magic Android device) become more widely used, we could see organisations such as museums responding to visitors which may have posted comments about their visit using technologies such as Twitter. Over lunch Nick Moyes, one of the speakers at the workshop, told me that this is already happening.
Anonymised visitor: Outside the science museum
Anonymised visitor: Just emptying jar of neuro transmitters.
Anonymised visitor: Soon to be devoured by imax spider, I gather
Anonymised visitor: Inspecting gas turbine engine
Anonymised visitor: The dan dare space ray gun was quite something. Fact!
A satisfied visitor to the Science Museum, we can surmise from these tweets. And the sciencemuseum responded:
sciencemuseum: @anonymised-visitor -hope you enjoy your day, if you’ve got any questions while you’re walking around the museum let us know!
And this dialogue was observed and commented upon:
Anonymised observer: @sciencemuseum Now that’s service!
Nick made the comment that “This thread did continue further, but what an impressive way to demonstrate to 2,698 followers what a responsive and caring organisation you are!”
How “Standing Stones” Interacted With Me
Over the weekend something similar happened to me. On Saturday night after a meal in a countryside pub I visited the Stanton Drew Stone Circles. When I got home I tweeted:
Back from Stanton Drew Stone Circles. There’s a Great Circle, a NE & SW Circle – & some stones left over (bit like an IKEA self-assembly) 9:51 PM May 2nd from TwitterFon
The following day I received a response to my tweet which now appears to have been deleted. But a few days later I received this message, from the same account, I believe:
Hi @briankelly Having just been to Stanton Drew, you might find this a bit of a revelation: http://bit.ly/qIdl7 (after bit about Avebury) 4:08 PM May 4th from TweetDeck
A great example of a way in which cultural heritage organisations can be quick to see the potential of new technologies and use them in order to provide a richer experience for its visitors. Or an illustration of the dangers which we’ll see more of as what are perceived as personal communications start to be exploited by the commerical sector? And the next time I tweet that I’m off to the pub, will I find myself receiving unwanted messages from lager companies?
What do you think?
May 6th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
I flew to Galway recently and when I landed, I got a tweet from the airline I’d flown with asking me if I’d had a good flight. That was spooky!