TWITTER

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co-workers to communicate and stay connected through exchange of quick and frequent updates. It has the ability for us to deliver information straight to your cell phone via SMS text messages. By signing up for a free twitter account and linking your cell phone with that account, you can follow the Region 3 twitter posts, which means when we post something, it will automatically be delivered to your cell phone via text message.

This year at the Region 3 Championships we want to try something new. As you know, sometimes meets run ahead of schedule and sometimes they run behind and you as coaches, parents, judges, etc. don't always hear the announcement for certain flights to report to staging, or when we begin competition for flights or awards ceremonies unless you are actually in the competition venue at the time and even then sometimes you can miss the announcement. Or maybe you step out for a quick bite to eat, or your in the hospitality room, or you run back to your hotel room for a bit, well this will be a way you can keep up to the minute with what is going on at the competition venue while you are away.

We will be posting to twitter each time flights are called to staging, each time flights begin competition, and when we begin awards ceremonies, plus any other updates as needed. Each time we do, it will send a text message to your phone alerting you to the status of the competition schedule (provided you have set up your twitter account appropriately, which we will provide details on how to do).

PLEASE NOTE: The use of twitter with your cell phone requires text messages to be sent to your phone. We recommend that you only use this service if you have an unlimited text message plan with your cell phone, otherwise, you will be charged by your cell phone company for each text message sent to your phone. USAG Region 3 is not responsible for any charges you incur on your cell phone bill while using the twitter service to receive updates.

Also note that we cannot guarantee the accuracy of the twitter service or any possible downtime that may occur in the service. In most cases, text messages are delivered within seconds of us posting to twitter. However because this is a new service that we are trying out this year, don't rely exclusively on its time and accuracy.

The following steps will outline setting up your twitter account:

1. Visit twitter.com and sign up for an account. To sign up, click the green "Get Started Now" box.

2. After you sign up for an account, sign in to your account. Once you are signed in you will see a small white box at the top right of the page on the right that says "Home," "Profile," etc. Click on settings and then a little further down on the page under your Name, click on the "Devices" tab.

3. Enter your mobile phone number as +1AAAXXXXXXX where AAA is your three digit area code and XXXXXXX is your seven digit phone number. (e.g. if your cell phone number is (888) 555-1212, then you will enter +18885551212. Check the box confirming that "It's okay for twitter to send text messages to my phone" and click save.

4. Twitter will ask you to verify your number by sending a code to 40404. Go to your cell phone and text the code to 40404. Do this by creating a new text message, enter the code word, and send it to phone number 40404. Twitter will send a text message back to your phone stating that it has verified your device and sms alerts are enabled. You can add twitter as a new contact on your phone and give it the phone number 40404 to make texting twitter easier if you wish.

5. Go back to your account on the web and click on devices again. Now you will see your mobile phone number and some options. Make sure device updates are "on". You can also check the box to turn updates off during certain hours (like when you might be sleeping) each night.

6. Now click on "Find People" at the top right of the webpage. Then, under where it says "Find people. Follow them." click on "Find on Twitter". enter the username "region3" and click search. Click on follow. The follow box will change to say pending because we must approve all followers. We will receive an email with your request to follow.

7. Check back in a day or two by signing in to your twitter account (in some cases it may take longer to approve your account to follow us). On the top right of your home page (after you sign in), you will see a light green box with your username. Under your username, you will see three numbers with the words "following", "followers" and "updates". Click on the word "following". This will take you to a list of all people you are following on twitter. If you see region3 here, it means we have approved you to follow us. (If you don't, give us a few more days) Once you see region3, you will need to change the device updates to "on" for region3. This will send our updates to your mobile phone and you should be ready to go from there.


Some helpful hints:

1. You can text "off" at any time to stop receiving updates. Text "on" to start receiving updates again.

2. We hope to get some feedback on your experience with twitter as it relates to the Region 3 Championships. We encourage you to return here after the 2009 Championships have concluded and fill out our feedback survey concerning your experience so that way may make the service better in the future.