TT Meetup Shoutbox - Now trialing!

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Joel

Hi all,

Some many months ago some of you may remember that there was a lot of feedback about how we conducted and organised our meets, particularly as more and more people were joining in the fun and making it very difficult to stay within a group on the park.

We brainstormed some ideas about how best to allow the group to diverse naturally and yet come together when we needed to. Theres been many ideas of the years, including the famous Dean's Hotline helping people to find each other on park, particularly at the start of the day.

So we thought it would be cool to develop a little tool to try and help this, and today we launch it to test ready in time for this weekend's meetup.

Introducing... the TT meetUP site :D

You can find the site at http://meetup.towerstimes.co.uk and it is best accessed through a mobile device, although it will still work on your desktop to test it out etc.

The idea is that it is a very simple "meetup shoutbox" allowing people to post quick messages about where they are located on the park, or what their plans are - or even at the start of the day to try and organise where everyone is meeting.

The site is designed to be very very very small on your mobile device! It should only take a few seconds to download on even the very slowest of internet connections (that is, GPRS, or G as you may see it on your phone screen).

Most people can get GPRS reception over most of the park, and whilst we don't expect it to be a perfect solution (not until at least that wild plan for park wifi appears too!), we hope it helps bring together some people and help keeps the meet running smoothly :)

The instructions for use are very simple - upon your first visit, you'll be asked to sign in with your forum account. You're perhaps better to do this before you arrive at the park, as this part of the process is a little more data heavy than the rest thanks to the forum scripts needed!

You can then freely post using the large text box at the top of the screen. You may also be asked by your device if you wish to share your location - this simply tags your shout out with your location from your device, be it from GPS or just the network location. You can of course disable or deny this and the other features will work as normal.

Latest messages are always shown at the top of the screen, and if you refresh by tapping the top title bar (the big blue bar at the top!!) you'll also benefit from message indicators next to posts showing if they are [NEW] since your last reload.

Team Members are shown in black, and obviously this is just to aid any important information we may need to communicate to you on the meet.

Thats about it - give it a play, and dont forget to bookmark it on your mobile device and give it a shot tomorrow too!

We welcome all feedback as usual right here :D
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Voke
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This is a great idea and addition! It allows people to use something else rather than relying on Dean's infamous Hotline!

Great stuff. :)
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DanB
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I think this worked really well on Saturday with updates on how rides were doing but it seemed to hardly be used on Sunday.

The main issue is people forgetting about it. It's early days but I think you should look into setting up push notifications through a service like boxcar with instructions provided to members on how to set it up.
Last edited by DanB on Sun Feb 12, 2012 9:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Bote
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Well I did do a few updates on it and I have to say it came in real handy. First thing Saturday morning we had a few updates to do with the letters and such, and any ride openings/closures. It was a really simple and effective way to let everyone on the meet that day know what was going on. As DanB says it's still early doors, but it'll no doubt take off a bit for in the future :)
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Rowe

I liked the MeetUP Shoutbox in that it was easy to grasp, well from my perspective, and very useful for finding members on park Saturday. I would use it again on larger meets such as Opening, Scarefest and Fireworks.

However I found that the system did fail to be acknowledged on both days down to it being announced only on the Friday evening and not earlier in the week as well as we're all very used to texting/calling one another for location anyway. There is also the issue of spam (ahem, Mr Hark ;)) but that isn't massively important.

All in all I think that it did well as a useful tool but it could've been made aware some time before the meet to prepare members who have GPS on their phones and weren't available to browse the forum at such short notice.

So in a way it both succeeded and failed in the trial period. 
Dean

I do try to have the Hotline open on most meet's, but sometimes it's not always possible.

My Hotline will still be open for meet's i'm attending, as always...

Meets that the Hotline will be open are always displayed on this page - www.dean8001.net/hotline
Last edited by Dean on Mon Feb 13, 2012 5:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
djtruefitt

Will this new shoutbox be open all the time during the year, or just for when we have official meets?

As it might be useful on mini meets to Alton, or even to other theme parks.
Joel

At the moment its just open all year round, but obviously its aim is to be used on the big meetups.

Rowe - it was announced so late as I completely forgot about it (as I wasnt going to the meet!) and got it finished in the nick of time to soft launch it this weekend :P

Dan - I'll look at integrating boxcar into it for you ready for March.
Rowe

Joel wrote: Rowe - it was announced so late as I completely forgot about it (as I wasnt going to the meet!) and got it finished in the nick of time to soft launch it this weekend :P
Well I can certainly forgive you for that :P I hope that the MeetUP Shoutbox will get more promotion when it comes to later meets?
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