The Queenstown Lakes District Council is encouraging commuters to jump on the Twitter bandwagon this winter.
By 6.45am each day, the council's communications staff aim to post information about the state of the region's roads on the council's web and facebook sites and send it to schools, transport operators, skifield operators and various media outlets, including the Otago Daily Times website, and radio stations.
A trial last winter was "followed" by 900 Twitter users and this year the council is trying to build the number of "followers" it "tweets" to - generally via their cellphones. Communications manager Meaghan Miller said the council was not the first local authority to employ Twitter but was ahead of many.
"When people set out in the morning at 7am we want them to have some sort of indication as to the road conditions during winter."
For the "Twitter-inept", the council had devised another way of getting the information to people. This was set out in a guide on the council's website.
However, a "Twitter-inept" ODT reporter spent the best part of five hours trying to follow the instructions, without success.
Council communications staff conceded the instructions were less than clear and would be reworded.
