TWITTER!

Ok, this is very much an experiment and I suspect perhaps a bit futuristic sounding but I don't see any reason Wishbone fans can't embrace technology....

Imagine this....

You arrive early to a gig and want to meet up with some fellow fans.  You send a text saying "I'm here already, going to the Swan for a beer" and all your followers get that text.

OR

The band post a notice with a suggestion of a venue for pre-gig meet ups and everyone who's following the band get a text with the message.

OR

You're at a Wishbone Ash gig. You know there are other people there from the forum, some of whom you already know personally, others that you've just exchanged messages with via the website.  You've enjoyed the gig and you fancy going for a pint but you'd rather have some company.  You send a text message to a number and all the people on the forum who follow you get the message.


How would all this work?  With TWITTER.


You'll notice that the top of this page now has a 'Latest Wishbone Updates' header.  Under there will be the latest 5 posts added by band members for your amusement.  This is achieved using a website called Twitter.

I've known about Twitter for quite sometime but hadn't really figured out what use it was.  Here's the low down and instructions in case you want to join in the fun/experiment.

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Getting a Twitter account is free and easy.  Do it at www.twitter.com

Once you have a Twitter account you can 'follow' wishbone ash posts by typing 'follow wishboneblog' into the twitter panel.  What that means is that you'll receive a news feed of all the updates we post to Twitter - essentially seeing the same stuff that appears above the blog but via Twitter.

Now the cool stuff...  If you have a mobile phone you can set up Twitter to send updates to your mobile.  I believe that you get an allowance of 250 text messages per week.  That means that if we post an update you can get it sent direct to your phone.

If a few people decide to follow us on Twitter you'll be able to click on our profile and see all the other people that are following us and you'll be able to follow them too.

By informing Twitter of your mobile number you also create the ability to post updates to your own Twitter account which others can follow.  You'd just send a text to the twitter number and anyone who was following you (and had text updates switched on for you) would receive a text message with your message.

For the fan meet ups you'd have to click wishboneblog to see who else is following.  You'd then elect to follow the people who you wanted to keep in touch with (you recognise their username from the forum)

After a gig 'fat drummer' sends a text to twitter saying "I'm going to the Swan for a pint".  Everyone who's following Fat Drummer and has text alerts on will get a copy of that message and you can all go and get drunk.

As I said this is all pretty new to me too.  I figure I'll just put it out there and we can see how it grows.

J

P.S. I'll post this in the forum too.  If you're confused post your questions there and I, or someone else who's figured it out, will try and help.